
The Sinking of HMS ‘Victoria’ Led the Royal Navy Astray - Thevet
http://warisboring.com/the-sinking-of-hms-victoria-led-the-royal-navy-astray/
======
dantillberg
I think about this a lot these days with regard to the US/NATO and land-based
combat. We built up power for decades during the cold war to prevail on land
against major powers, and our Battle of Trafalgar was Desert Storm in 1991. In
the following years, absorbed in our sense of supremacy, we shifted our focus
to asymmetrical warfare, optimizing our vehicles and doctrines for light war
against dispersed forces mixed with civilians.

I think of this every time I hear, "XXX is irrelevant in this age of
asymmetric warfare." Sure, maybe that system or doctrine is not useful when
fighting 1,000 militants blended into a city of 1,000,000. But what happens
if/when we get into a shooting war with an adversary that has a real army, a
real air force, and/or a real navy? Will it look like Desert Storm? Or will it
look like the Bay of Pigs invasion? And could the US in 2040 look like France
in 1940?

~~~
kcorbitt
> But what happens if/when we get into a shooting war with an adversary that
> has a real army, a real air force, and/or a real navy?

Either the shooting war ends real quick with a diplomatic solution, or the
territories of both adversaries quickly turn into faintly glowing wastelands
uninhabitable for a thousand years.

The only warfare that matters today is asymmetrical warfare against relatively
low-tech guerrillas and third-tier states. Once you credibly threaten the
homeland of any opponent near the US's level of military sophistication,
you've already lost the war.

~~~
remarkEon
>The only warfare that matters today is asymmetrical warfare against
relatively low-tech guerrillas and third-tier states.

No, that's not correct, and is emblematic of the insistence to "always train
for the last war." The reality of what future war might look like is much more
nuanced than "either MAD or more COIN." General Milley talked about this last
summer, and I tend to agree with his assessment. Incidentally his critique is
inline with the posted article about mindless obedience.

[http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient-
vic...](http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient-victorious-
gen-milleys-future-us-soldier/)

~~~
kcorbitt
I read the article, but Gen. Milley doesn't make the case for why mutually-
assured destruction is no longer relevant (he doesn't mention it at all,
actually). After 50 years in which it has arguably been the primary strategic
factor maintaining the peace among the great powers, I'm curious about why the
future would look different.

~~~
poof131
The problem with mutually assured destruction is the “assured” part. There is
nothing assured about it. Cyber, space, and other weapons could dismantle the
assurance and we could be in a totally different warfare environment.
Certainly this doesn’t seem to be the case yet, but I wouldn’t make
assumptions about the future.

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hardlianotion
Not clear At all clear that at Jutland lack of individual initiative swung the
battle. The battle was fairly skilfully fought between two state of the art
combatants and errors of judgement, while costly, were retrieved on both
sides, making the affair something of a score draw.

Betty's taking the initiative the way he did without telling Jellicoe what he
faced or where he was going could have cost Britain the battle, as Beattie
sailed into the German trap. Scheer's about turn when his T was crossed saved
the fleet, so you could say the superb manoeuvring discipline of the German
fleet saved it. You could also say that prioritising speed and heavy gunnery
over armour (German ships prioritised armour) in the British battle cruisers
didn't help them when they came up against German battleships. Or that the
German gunnery was superior, or that the British munitions appeared to
malfunction (or was that the German armour). There was, however, at least one
instance in which faulty signalling from Beatty's flagship was very costly.

I think I understand the point the author is trying to make, but I would need
a much clearer account of what he thought went wrong at Jutland to appreciate
or agree with it.

~~~
foldr
Just a pedantic note. British gunnery was actually pretty good at Jutland (see
e.g. here [http://www.jutland1916.com/tactics-and-
technologies-4/gunner...](http://www.jutland1916.com/tactics-and-
technologies-4/gunnery-performance/) and here
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_to_major_ships_at_the_B...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_to_major_ships_at_the_Battle_of_Jutland)).
The German gunnery was more obviously effective because it succeeded in
blowing up some of the battlecruisers, but in terms of accuracy and hits
landed, the British ships put in a pretty good performance.

~~~
rhcom2
Wow. Those accuracy number are crazy, I had no idea they would be so low
(<5%).

~~~
foldr
Hitting a moving target over 10,000 yards away from a moving platform using
optical rangefinders and analogue fire control computers. It's a miracle they
ever hit anything IMHO.

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ltratt
The Rules of the Game is a fascinating book because it starts with the lead-up
Jutland, goes back in time to explain how the culture and personalities of the
Royal Navy came to be, before going back to Jutland. It made my head hurt the
first time I read it, because so much was unfamiliar, but a second read really
brought things to life.

The synopsis / review this book offers is a good one but it could, perhaps, be
generalised. Though Gordon doesn't make it explicit as such, the lesson I
ended up taking away from the book is that cultures tend to go through
alternating periods of encouraging initiative or obedience. You can see this
in armies (perhaps the classic example is the Prussian / German army: it
started off with Frederick the Great as an army of obedience; became (at the
top levels at least) an army of initiative under von Moltke the Elder; and (in
the West, at least) went back to an army of obedience for most of WWI),
technology (look at any well known company's research lab culture), and even
wider society. If I had to briefly summarise the consequences of this, it
tends to come down to when two broadly equal organisations square up against
each other: if one uses obedience as its model, and the other initiative, the
latter will tend to win; if the two both use the same system, the outcome
seems to be mostly random.

[That said, Jutland isn't a great example of this in my opinion, as it was so
protracted and its outcome so muddy. Poor ship design and some sloppy
practises with explosives meant the British came off worse in terms of
casualties, so arguably the Germans won the day. However, the (smaller) German
Navy realised that it had only survived through luck, and basically stayed in
port for the rest of the war, whereas the British were out sailing in force
less than a week later and continuing the blockade of Germany. The Germans
eventually thought the only way to win at sea was unrestricted submarine
warfare, which turned out to be perhaps the biggest PR disaster in history. I
was astonished to realise that the German Navy's inferiority complex from
Jutland persisted into WWII: the German Navy stalled shamelessly when asked to
help invade Britain, as the lesson they learnt from Jutland was that the
British Navy could never be defeated, so what was the point of trying? So
Jutland had complex long-term effects that defy easy classification. Which is,
perhaps, why it's so fascinating.]

~~~
cmdkeen
There's a separate, fascinating, historical incident that shaped the Royal
Navy and by extension world affairs for centuries. The execution of Admiral
Byng for "failing to do his utmost" lead to a culture of aggression in the RN.
This resulted over the years in many impressive, against the odds, victories
such as Pellew's two frigates taking the 74 Droits de l'Homme. It also led to
sacrifices such as HMS Glowworm's attack on the Hipper during the Norway
campaign in 1940.

The Royal Navy differs from the British Army in taking a more holistic view of
traditions and history. Trafalgar is celebrated by all every year, Taranto is
celebrated by all aviators every year - rather than only those descended from
units involved. This combined with the length of time to draw lessons from has
led to the saying "The Navy has traditions, the Army history and the Air Force
has habits. And nasty, dirty habits they are too".

~~~
arethuza
I can strongly recommend "The Silent Deep" about the Royal Navy submarine
service. The parts describing the Perisher course are fascinating (the author,
perhaps because he is a Peer, actually got to go on subs during the course) -
imagine a training course where if you deemed to have failed you are
immediately removed from the training area (by helicopter) and never allowed
to work in that area of the Navy again! Mind you, apparently you do get a
bottle of whisky to make up for your career being in shreds.

[https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/183977/the-silent-
deep/](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/183977/the-silent-deep/)

~~~
GrumpSlverBear
There has been a couple of programs on the UK channels (I think mostly
Channel4/Five) that dealt with with Perisher course. It is brutal, hard, and
exhausting.

And yeah, bottle of whisky on your leave and you can't work on subs anymore
(though you do get to keep the Dolphin pin apparently).

------
arjie
Interestingly, this lesson having been learned in war, it lay hibernating to
be discovered in engineering decades later.

While most modern safety advice recommends empowering line workers to report
safety failures, this also extends to engineering quality. The quintessential
example of devolving power down to individuals is Andon[0], the most
recognisable feature of which is a little cord any line worker in the factory
can pull to stop the entire line.

0:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_\(manufacturing\))

------
Animats
Yeah, yeah, individual initiative. Nest read an analysis of the Charge of the
Light Brigade and see how Cardigan's initiative (or stupidity) led the charge
in the wrong direction, despite orders from Lucan.

For a serious discussion of how much initiative is too much or too little,
read MCDP 1, "Warfighting", the USMC manual on how to run a battle. Good
military forces work hard at that balance.

~~~
cmdkeen
Initiative is very different at sea, and was especially so before the era of
effective radio communications. Nations trusted their admirals and captains to
effectively be ambassadors as the effect they could have on foreign affairs
during peacetime was enormous. From the USS Pueblo to the USS Vincennes the
position naval captains are put is often significantly more isolated,
complicated, and symbolically important than any other armed service.

~~~
arethuza
Speaking of trusting naval crews - the UK Tridents subs don't require any
codes being sent to authorize launches, they have all the required information
and we simply trust them not to abuse it.

~~~
_delirium
I think that's true for all countries that have submarine-launched nuclear
weapons. One of the purposes of having nuclear missiles on submarines is for
them to pose a credible threat of retaliation against a first strike, even if
the first strike is successful enough to destroy land-based installations and
the command chain. So the theory is that they need to be able to retaliate
without a functioning chain of command.

~~~
arethuza
Of course getting detailed information on these things is difficult but I've
seen more than one reference claiming that UK Tridents subs are unusual in
this respect - Wikipedia claims that launch keys on US Tridents subs are kept
in safes to which the crew do not have the combinations:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Two-
man...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Two-man_rule)

Apparently the reasoning is that the UK is so close to potential enemies that
there would be no time for the PM or equivalent to give authorization - the so
called "4 minute warning" being very optimistic. The US is much further away
from the Soviets/Russia so there would be far more time to broadcast a launch
order. Also the UK is notoriously cheap about these kinds of things!

~~~
willvarfar
The US had a secret launch code - Permissive Action Link (PAL) - but that code
was allegedly set to 00000000 and launch operators were told this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link)

The combination was changed in 1977.

------
arethuza
If I turn my head to the left and look out of my study window I can look over
that exact bit of the Forth in that picture of the British Grand Fleet - the
only thing that looks like a battleship there today being the island of
Inchmickery:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchmickery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchmickery)

~~~
cmdkeen
Though just the other side of the bridges, up at Rosyth, there are two rather
large aircraft carriers being built. Also several aging examples of what
arguably replaced the battleship, nuclear attack submarines.

~~~
arethuza
Och yes, I am quite looking forward to watching the carriers sail past, even
if I am a bit dubious about their utility.

Must have been quite a site to have the Forth _full_ of ships though.

------
Shivetya
Airlines went through this issue back after the Tenerife disaster where the
two 747s collided. It was determined that crew must always be allowed to
challenge the actions of another.

~~~
omegant
Now the problem is excess reliance in computer aided flying and procedures.
New pilots are receiving less hands on flying instruction and are heavilly
drilled in following the procedures to the letter(this is not an exageration).
It's like a theater play, like the blind obedience and spit and polish of the
navy. So assets that are extremely useful become a problem when something goes
out of the script. It's hard to maintain the equilibrium, and we have yet to
swing the pendulum in the other direction.

~~~
nradov
We had another discussion yesterday about what happens when the automation go
awry.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14336897)

------
Terr_
> Victory begets cultural decay by sparing the navy the rigors of future
> combat, the truest test of martial adequacy.

Reminds me of a fiction quote:

> The general was only warming up. [...] "You infants who've come up in the
> past decade and more have no concept of combat. These long periods of
> unbroken peace weaken the Service. If they go on much longer, when a crisis
> comes there'll be no one left who's had any real practice in a crunch."

> Miles's eyes crossed slightly, from internal pressure. Then should His
> Imperial Majesty provide a war every five years, as a convenience for the
> advancement of his officers' careers? His mind boggled slightly over the
> concept of "real practice." Had Miles maybe acquired his first clue why this
> superb-looking officer had washed up on Kyril Island?

(The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold)

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Nomentatus
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13194/13194-h/13194-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13194/13194-h/13194-h.htm)

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Confiks
I'm completely distracted by the name of the website: "War is boring".

The vehement disagreement is almost repulsing me to RTFA.

~~~
gumby
Well, if you followed the blog (as I have over several publishers -- wtf?) I
think you'd find it's like minded.

