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Bad ideas in war

Is that the movie about the time the IJN interrupted an American love triangle?

My thoughts are that if you have an argument to make, that the Perry Expedition was a bad idea in war, despite it not being a war thing, then please please please just make the argument already. Preferably without appealing to Hollywood depictions of things.
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Not exactly a bad idea, but I saw Dr Alexander Clarke saying that he thought the Type 31 would be better served with one or two rapid firing 76mm guns rather than a 57mm and a 40mm gun as being better in dealing with small ships without using missiles. Indonesia has 2 and a 35mm. He did say there's a reason why many smaller warships kept coming back to about a 3 inch gun.


The argument seemed reasonable to me.
 
Perun's latest video suggests that the change to the BBG(x) and FF(x) are even worse than they were at their announcements.

The unit cost of the frigate based on the legend class the FF(x) is going to be more than the Constellation class for the first few years.

And the Defiant class is going to be more expensive because of the (somewhat reasonable) decision to make it nuclear.

In itself that's not a bad thing for such a ship, and if you are going to have such a ship , is possibly even a sensible move, but it does make it even more expensive.

 
Perun's latest video suggests that the change to the BBG(x) and FF(x) are even worse than they were at their announcements.

The unit cost of the frigate based on the legend class the FF(x) is going to be more than the Constellation class for the first few years.

And the Defiant class is going to be more expensive because of the (somewhat reasonable) decision to make it nuclear.

In itself that's not a bad thing for such a ship, and if you are going to have such a ship , is possibly even a sensible move, but it does make it even more expensive.

At about 11:00: "Apparently meant to sink anything out there including the budget." Awesome.
12:30: Fires is the king of battle..." -- Acting SecNav. Whut?
And at about 17:00: It's a commitment to the future. But like everything Trump, it's a comittment to the past.
It's just going to get worse, I'll go ahead and post.
ETA: "Just like the arrival of Prince of Wales and Repulse deterred the Japanese in the 1940's." Ouch!
 
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Well, here's one: the Fritz X guided bomb.

I know some would say, but Hans, it was the first guided anti-ship bomb! It was genius! And it sunk the RM ROMA!

But hear me out the idea was indeed great. The execution... eh... not really.

The bomb required the plane to fly in a straight line for a rather long time, while the bombardier remote controlled the missile. Guess what ships had by then? AA guns. Speaking as an AA guy, guess what idea we LOVED the most? Planes flying in a straight line at constant speed. Guess what fighter planes love? The same.

Anyway, the Roma was the ONLY ship it ever sunk, and she wasn't exactly gunning back. And there was one other non-fatal hit. Any other plane carrying one got pwned with prejudice by AA and/or fighter planes. HUNDREDS of them. Being sent to drop one was just a tiny bit safer than being "volunteered" as kamikaze in Japan, but not by much, and with significantly less chances of achieving anything with your death.
 
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Well, here's one: the Fritz X guided bomb.

I know some would say, but Hans, it was the first guided anti-ship bomb! It was genius! And it sunk the RM ROMA!

But hear me out the idea was indeed great. The execution... eh... not really.

The bomb required the plane to fly in a straight line for a rather long time, while the bombardier remote controlled the missile. Guess what ships had by then? AA guns. Speaking as an AA guy, guess what idea we LOVED the most? Planes flying in a straight line at constant speed. Guess what fighter planes love? The same.

Anyway, the Roma was the ONLY ship it ever sunk, and she wasn't exactly gunning back. And there was one other non-fatal hit.Any other plane carrying one got pwned with prejudice by AA and/or fighter planes. HUNDREDS of them. Being sent to drop one was just a tiny bit safer than being "volunteered" as kamikaze in Japan, but not by much, and with significantly less chances of achieving anything with your death.
HMS Warspite. The bomb nearly did for her. So it was a pretty major non fatal hit.
 
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And yet she was there off Normandy giving fire support.
With the hole filled with concrete, one boiler room out of action and one 15 inch turret out of action. If it weren't for the fact that the Allies needed all the firepower they could get at D-Day, she would likely have been scrapped.
 
Well, here's one: the Fritz X guided bomb.

I know some would say, but Hans, it was the first guided anti-ship bomb! It was genius! And it sunk the RM ROMA!

But hear me out the idea was indeed great. The execution... eh... not really.

The bomb required the plane to fly in a straight line for a rather long time, while the bombardier remote controlled the missile. Guess what ships had by then? AA guns. Speaking as an AA guy, guess what idea we LOVED the most? Planes flying in a straight line at constant speed. Guess what fighter planes love? The same.

Anyway, the Roma was the ONLY ship it ever sunk, and she wasn't exactly gunning back. And there was one other non-fatal hit. Any other plane carrying one got pwned with prejudice by AA and/or fighter planes. HUNDREDS of them. Being sent to drop one was just a tiny bit safer than being "volunteered" as kamikaze in Japan, but not by much, and with significantly less chances of achieving anything with your death.
So just like every torpedo and dive bomb in use at the time?

Just like every other naval strike bomber that had to fly in a straight line for an uncomfortable amount of time, in the teeth of anti-aircraft fire and fighter intercepts?

One of the problems bomber forces faced in WW2 was that conventional bombers could fly above most AA, but their payloads of dumb bombs were spectacularly inaccurate against moving naval targets. As an attempt to solve that problem, while not incurring the risks faced by dive bombers and torpedo bombers, hardly sounds like a bad idea to me.

I swear, this thread has the weirdest takes.
 
With the hole filled with concrete, one boiler room out of action and one 15 inch turret out of action. If it weren't for the fact that the Allies needed all the firepower they could get at D-Day, she would likely have been scrapped.
But it wasn't sunk and was still a serviceable ship.

Even if Warspite and other ships had been sunk it would have made no difference to the Salerno landings.
The Fritz X was like a lot of the German 'wunderwaffe' a waste of resources.
 
So just like every torpedo and dive bomb in use at the time?
No, but some of them maybe.
You have to look at their results and effect on an engagement, the tactics used and opposition.
Dive bombing and torpedo attacks against warships at sea certainly became harder as the war went on which is one of the reasons the Japanese started to use Kamikaze tactics.

Fritz X was an attempt at making an unmanned Kamikaze developed after the plan to use manned 'Reichenberg' V1s was scrapped.
 
No, but some of them maybe.
Pretty sure it was all of them. The only difference being when in the mission profile the option of radical maneuvering is available.

You have to look at their results and effect on an engagement, the tactics used and opposition.
Dive bombing and torpedo attacks against warships at sea certainly became harder as the war went on which is one of the reasons the Japanese started to use Kamikaze tactics.

Fritz X was an attempt at making an unmanned Kamikaze developed after the plan to use manned 'Reichenberg' V1s was scrapped.
Yes, and therefore an excellent idea in war. (As further evidenced by the fact that everyone has embraced and improved upon the concept of guided bombs ever since. It's hard to argue that one of the most popular and long-lived ideas in war is somehow a bad idea. And yet here we are, somehow.)
 
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Where was it said that guided weapons were a bad idea?

One specific weapon is the subject.
 
And I'm saying this one specific weapon was not a bad idea. Good ideas that are not yet perfected are not bad ideas.
It was a bad idea, look at the resources involved in it's production and delivery method.
At a time when resources were tight and there wasn't any way they would make any difference to the war.
 
It was a bad idea, look at the resources involved in it's production and delivery method.
At a time when resources were tight and there wasn't any way they would make any difference to the war.
I'm saying the delivery method was equivalent to the other naval strike weapons available at the time. I think it might have even been a bit of an improvement.

Also, tight resources and making no difference aren't problems with the idea itself. It's still a good idea. Those other factors are problems with Germany not suing for peace once they'd reached this point.

It's not like Germany was overlooking options that would have actually turned the tide in their favor. They were grasping at straws. My position is that the Fritz X was exactly the right kind of straw to grasp at, as straws go.
 
The US had already designed and built long range, tv guided assault drones, the Interstate TDR-1
They were used in action against the Japanese.

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