100 Years!

This is coolbert:

From the wiki site entitled:


"Naval tactics in the Age of Steam"


"The development of tactics in the 19th Century"

This item of particular interest!

"The interval of ninety years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 was marked by no major naval war. There was fighting at sea, and there were prolonged blockades, but there were no campaigns between large and well appointed navies."

Massed ships forming a fleet in combat with another fleet of massed ships. Multiple divisions of ships all acting in unison under the command of one admiral on either side. [A division consists of two to four ships of the capital ship class.]

"The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they generally possess the heaviest firepower and armor and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels"

From the end of the Napoleonic Era [1815] until Tsushima was a ninety year period, but from Trafalgar to Tsushima was one hundred years! Trafalgar also each of those ships-of-the-line having a firepower equal to a 30,000 man army!!

Massed divisions of ships forming fleets fighting it out the old-fashioned way, NAVAL CANNON VERSUS OTHER NAVAL CANNON!! NO submarines firing torpedoes nor aircraft launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier.

As it was at Trafalgar, as it was at Tsushima. Guns rather than cannon predominantly so, torpedo attack by torpedo boats occurring at Tsushima only in the aftermath of the battle, a night-time engagement, Japanese chasing Russians, the results inconclusive.

"for the last time in the history of naval warfare ships of the line of a beaten fleet surrendered on the high seas." [Tsushima]

After Tsushima, we have Jutland as the LAST MAJOR BATTLE OF MASSED DIVISIONS OF SHIPS FORMING FLEETS IN CONTACT WITH AND IN BATTLE WITH THE ADVERSARY ALSO DEPLOYING MASSED NUMBERS OF SHIPS!! Again, naval gun fire the predominant weapon in use by both sides!

During World War Two [WW2], capital ships battling it out using naval gunfire a great rarity, much less having a division of capital ships in combat simultaneously on both sides.

The various battles of Savo Island [Guadalcanal - - 1942] and subsequently Surigao Strait [1944] the LAST TIME such naval combat between massed surface vessels employing gun fire has occurred, and PERHAPS THE LAST TIME SUCH NAVAL WARFARE WILL EVER OCCUR!

The cost to build JUST ONE CAPITAL SHIP AS WAS DEPLOYED BY THE VARIOUS COMBATANTS AT JUTLAND OR SAVO ISLAND PROHIBITIVE BY MODERN STANDARDS!

Naval gunfire is also a method passe' for some time now as a means of waging naval warfare.

Cost and technology have FOREVER made null and void a form of naval combat that existed for a period of over four hundred years? It seems so! The likes of a Trafalgar, a Tsushima, a Jutland, a Savo Island will NEVER be seen again!

coolbert.