Tfw rule the waves made you realize Mahanian naval theory is hellish

Mahan's writing in 1890 about naval history until 1812. He was not prescribing what kind of ships people should build in the future, and he had no idea what a "cruiser" would become in 1930s+. When Mahan is writing about "cruiser," he's writing about boats that sailed alone harassing commerce. He wasn't writing about battleship-lights.

>He was not prescribing what kind of ships people should build in the future, and he had no idea what a "cruiser" would become in 1930s+
He would, however, know about the cruisers they had been building in the 19th century for similar roles, the Royal Navy had over 120 of the things come 1914, and they fulfilled the same operational role.

>When Mahan is writing about "cruiser," he's writing about boats that sailed alone harassing commerce.
Yes, precisely. And that's dumb as shit, because you can't actually force a battle without attacking commerce, or at least threatening to do so, and your colossal force of capital ships that you're keeping together because you're afraid of being defeated in detail if you split them up will never actually control enough water space to matter.

>naval history until 1812
>torpedo boats taken into account
Hmm

>or at least threatening to do so, and your colossal force of capital ships that you're keeping together because you're afraid of being defeated in detail if you split them up will never actually control enough water space to matter.
Yeah just like how Germany was able to trade with the entire world in WW1 & 2 because the Royal Navy was useless. Britain should've built a lot of subs and E-boats instead, right?

Find me a place in the Influence of Sea Power where Mahan talks about torpedo boats.

You're retarded.
warandsecurity.com/2014/08/04/the-naval-balance-of-power-in-1914/

First off, the Royal navy built more cruisers relative to capital ships than the Germans did.

RN
>121 cruisers
>22 Dreadnoughts,
>9 battlecruisers
>40 pre-dreadnoughts

1.704 cruisers to capital ships if you count the BCs.

Meanwhile, Germany built
>41 cruisers,
>15 dreadnoughts
>4 battlecruisers
>22 pre-dreadnoughts
Or a pure 1:1 ratio.

The Germans, not the RN, were the one preparing more closely along Mahan's recommendations, who were able to prevail by simple dint of having more resources to throw into ships in general.

Secondly, the Royal Navy did not blockade the way that Mahan envisioned, it was a loose blockade in the North Sea, not a tight one by the port, because surprise, coastal artillery can and will fuck up capital ships.

Thirdly, even if they did use a bunch of cruisers, the German fleet can't actually project force into the Atlantic anyway, because they don't have the range in an era of coal powered ships. It would have been entirely probable for the blockade to continue without the need to sink a single German warship, or even threaten to do so.

The Royal navy was not useless, but it wasn't blockading Germany in accordance to Mahanian doctrine in any sense of the word.

gutenberg.org/files/13529/13529-h/13529-h.htm#Page_109

> There is on the surface an evident resemblance between the rôle of the fire-ship and the part assigned in modern warfare to the torpedo-cruiser. The terrible character of the attack, the comparative smallness of the vessel making it, and the large demands upon the nerve of the assailant, are the chief points of resemblance; the great points of difference are the comparative certainty with which the modern vessel can be handled, which is partly met by the same advantage in the iron-clad over the old ship-of-the-line, and the instantaneousness of the injury by torpedo, whose attack fails or succeeds at once, whereas that of the fire-ship required time for effecting the object, which in both cases is total destruction of the hostile ship, instead of crippling or otherwise reducing it. An appreciation of the character of fire-ships, of the circumstances under which they attained their greatest usefulness, and of the causes which led to their disappearance, may perhaps help in the decision to which nations must come as to whether the torpedo-cruiser, pure and simple, is a type of weapon destined to survive in fleets.

Mahan did not envision a tight blockade of a port because he did not try to set out rules by which one should blockade. The important thing was that your fleet be able to destroy the enemy fleet, or threaten the destruction of it, which would cede the control of the seas to you.

>Mahanian doctrine
This is the problem with people who claim to "know better" than Mahan. All Mahan said was that commerce raiding is a dumbfuck way to try to control the seas. There was no "Mahanian doctrine." If building a bunch of unseaworthy torpedo boats was somehow a way to control the seas, that would have fit into "Mahanian doctrine."

In any case history has proven Mahan right, and not unexpectedly, since Mahan was positing some of the most obvious, simplest points ever.

Thanks user. I found it myself and was going to correct my post. He does draw parallels and yes, his project is not purely historical, but people go overboard in ascribing all manner of retarded "theories" to Mahan, whose point was extremely simple and general.

>Mahan did not envision a tight blockade of a port because he did not try to set out rules by which one should blockade. The important thing was that your fleet be able to destroy the enemy fleet, or threaten the destruction of it, which would cede the control of the seas to you.
But that is not an important factor and is not particularly necessary to control the seas.

>All Mahan said was that commerce raiding is a dumbfuck way to try to control the seas.
It is absolutely necessary to control the seas, since a deep projection of power can only control what is within reach of its guns at any one moment, and there's always going to be more area than that you need to cover.

>In any case history has proven Mahan right, and not unexpectedly, since Mahan was positing some of the most obvious, simplest points ever.
No it hasn't. There has not been a single war since Mahan wrote that was decided by the destruction of the enemy fleet. Granted, a lot of that had to do with the sudden and unforeseeable rise of air power and how that affected naval war, but you look at something like, the MTO in WW2, and you'll see that the British managed to control most of the Med while having a position of inferiority vis a vis Italian naval assets.

>It is absolutely necessary to control the seas, since a deep projection of power can only control what is within reach of its guns at any one moment, and there's always going to be more area than that you need to cover.
If your battle fleet is capable of destroying the enemy battle fleet, you only need to cover the areas around enemy home ports or known points on the enemy supply line. Commerce "raiding" also becomes a lot easier as enemy battle fleet cannot come out and destroy your raiders.

>There has not been a single war since Mahan wrote that was decided by the destruction of the enemy fleet.
WW1 and 2 were won by sides that controlled the sea. Destruction of the enemy fleet is a means to that end, and not an exclusive means.

>unforeseeable rise of air power and how that affected naval war, but you look at something like, the MTO in WW2, and you'll see that the British managed to control most of the Med while having a position of inferiority vis a vis Italian naval assets.
Do you think Mahan would have autistically screamed that controlling the sea using air power is not the correct way to do it?

>If your battle fleet is capable of destroying the enemy battle fleet, you only need to cover the areas around enemy home ports
That's assuming your enemy is in a situation like Germany's, where they can only stage from a relatively small area. If you're up against someone who can base in multiple areas, you cannot.

>or known points on the enemy supply line.
You mean, commerce raid? Intercepting the supply ships?

>WW1 and 2 were won by sides that controlled the sea.
They were also won by sides that had combined GDPs of about 6 times their adversaries, and enormous manpower advantages. What makes you think sea control is the critical factor?

>Do you think Mahan would have autistically screamed that controlling the sea using air power is not the correct way to do it?
No, but he would be screaming autistically when you point out that you can in fact control sea area in the face of a fleet that outguns yours, which I noticed you completely ignored, probably because you don't have an answer for it.

bote.
I'm a bit worried about the 0 extended deck, but it's just a battlecruiser that will be obsolete in a few years anyways.

It basically revolves around how large battleships would be the key to a naval supremacy in a war against naval powers.They also revolve around how decisive naval battles would be won with said large ships

More like the Imperial Japanese Navy
Their naval doctrine ultimately ends with how a single decisive battle would spell the doom of the US Navy

This.
Their entire naval strategy boiled down to whittling down the US navy with submarines and carriers while their ships were on the move, trying to force them into a decisive battleship battle as soon as possible, crushing the fleet and thus moving in to secure all US bases in the Pacific and the US west coast to prevent new ships from being built.
The funny thing is, if the US had fallen for it, they probably would have succeeded.

Not him, but are you fucking retarded? Even if this "plan" somehow worked, the Japanese can't instantly go from sunk U.S. fleet ot occupying U.S. islands in the pacific, becuase said islands have large land garrisons and lots of airplanes making landing difficult. Going after the West Coast would be even worse, since it can be supplied by overland. And how the fuck you're going to prevent new ships from being built when most of the shipyards are on the fucking east coast is beyond me.

Are you a weeb, or just dumb?

>tfw Rule the Waves made you realize that spotters were dumb

>hurr durr japanese plan was to take over hawaii and us west coast instead of just turning the american public against a war in protection of european colonies in the southeastern asia

Please go back to the third grade and learn to read. It's literally one whole post above mine.>Their entire naval strategy boiled down to whittling down the US navy with submarines and carriers while their ships were on the move, trying to force them into a decisive battleship battle as soon as possible, crushing the fleet and thus moving in to secure all US bases in the Pacific and the US west coast to prevent new ships from being built.

so basically "build a doomstack"?

>you use your supremacy of the water to blockade your enemy's fleet in port, yielding you control of the sea by default.
So fleet in being doctrine?

This looks like a great game, but also like you need extensive knowledge of ships to play it. Shame.

Basically.

No, that's something completely different.

A fleet in being is how you attempt to limit the effect of an adversary's naval superiority. You use the threat of a sortie to force your opponent to keep his fleet together, when he would otherwise want to split it up.

Pretend for a minute that you and I run countries that are at war. You have 18 battleships, I only have 12. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume

1) There are no other warships.
2) Our ships are exactly even in all respects from guns to armor to crew quality.
3) A side with more battleships in a naval engagement is likely to win.
4) A battleship can destroy any number of merchant ships without effort if they are unprotected
5) Both of us have merchant shipping going to and fro all over the world.
6) It is impossible, or at least extremely difficult and risky, to attack ships when they're in a friendly port.

Now, I've got a shitty situation. My 12 ships aren't going to beat your 18. And if I can't win that battle, I have to think of a way to minimize the damage in it. So what I'll do is put all 12 of my ships together in one well protected harbor. Now, if you split up your ships to hunt down my commerce all over the world, I can sortie with my ships in a body, and pick off your guys a few at a time. So what do you do? You leave at least 12, and probably more so you're certain of winning against me in a sortie, ships somewhere nearby that you can intercept my forces if you try to break out. If you leave say 14 ships, that only leaves you 4 to go hunt down and harass my merchant shipping with, which is a hell of a lot less than there'd be if I sailed out, fought a hopeless battle, probably lost but brought a few of your guys down, and let you disperse to ravage my shipping all over the world.

Ok that helped

So we are meeting at jutland or not?