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BlacktailFA — Warship Disasters! Episode1: The HMS Swift
#admiral #cruiser #destroyer #disasters #fisher #hms #jackie #john #leader #light #sir #swift #warship
Published: 2015-01-17 08:52:44 +0000 UTC; Views: 842; Favourites: 8; Downloads: 9
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Description
The HMS Swift is a classic example of how to do everything wrong when developing a warship. For a Destroyer of the early 1900s, she tried to be too big, too heavy, and too fast, and yet had little endurance or weaponry. Worse still, she was a de-facto Light Cruiser replacement attempt, but had lacked the medium-bore guns or armor needed to compete with *enemy* Light Cruisers.This is also a story of executive meddling, corporate misconduct, and military ineptitude, to name a few. It kind of goes without saying, but the story of the Swift didn't have a happy ending.
As usual, I had considerable editing support from Screbellious in creating this presentation.
The following are my sources for this presentation, proving that I'm NOT making any of this up...
"The World's Worst Warships", by Anthony Preston (Conway Maritime Press, 2002).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Swif…
www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs…
www.the-weatherings.co.uk/pccs…
www.naval-encyclopedia.com/pre…
www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyB…
navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_dd…
www.naval-history.net/WW1Book-…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o…
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Comments: 16
Excellent video again. I remember that Fisher's reputation got high marks for modernizing the British navy with HMS Dreadnought, but he was not a really good fellow worker with the civilians in the Government. Winston Churchill was First Sea Lord from 1911 to 1915, and in the peacetime portion of that four year period he was quite impressed by Fisher. Then, in 1914 he discovered the difficulties of working with him when he (Fisher) felt he was THE ESSENTIAL man for naval affairs. It turned out, much to Churchill's dismay, that Fisher never made formal military plans for the use of the Navy during the war except for the placement of the fleet at Scapa Flow, Rosythe, and other ports in the British Isles and in the widespread empire. Unlike Germany which had the "Schlieffen" Plan for attacking France on land, there was never any corresponding naval "Fisher" plan to get at the German Navy. Fisher tried to reassure an increasingly anxious Churchill that he had plans - but they were all in his head! After the series of naval disasters (Audacious sinking, the torpedoing of the three antiquated cruisers, Goeben and Breslau) all capped by the loss of Coronel with only the victory at Heligoland Bight to brag about, Churchill had enough, and helped force out Fisher. Ironically, within a year (after the Gallipoli disaster) Churchill too would be forced out. Fisher lived until 1920, carping about Churchill's two-face treatment of the great Fisher, and finding nobody wanted his advice. In the last couple of years I discovered (I can't recall where I found it) that during the War Fisher was in touch with his German opposite number Tirpitz, corresponding by letter on comparative naval results (as though they saw a life and death struggle like the Great War as a teaching exercise) and commiserating with each other on how their governments ungrarefully put them out to pasture just as the war began.
I'm glad they were able to comfort each other.
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First of all, excellent presentation; its about time bad ships were subjects of your presentations.
The thing is a screwed up warship is potentially a worse disaster than a bad tank or aircraft because the costs of such a Eff-up are usually far greater in terms of money and lives.
BTW I read Preston's book; a really enjoyable read.
It's fitting you first Warship Disaster show would feature Jackie Fisher.....talk about a character......
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I've got a lot more Warship Disasters where that came from, and they're not all straight from the book either.
Moreover, some of these selections are going to "step on some toes", if you will, so expect a lot of people to cry foul.
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Spelling error: In "Lessons Learned", the guy says, "I'm surrounded by buffons" instead of "I'm surrounded by BUFFOONS" (emphasis mine). This is otherwise well done.
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I figured that might happen. The background quotes weren't part of the script, so they weren't edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so on.
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Well what did you expect from them do you know how many inbreeders are in the British high command, and Royal family?
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LoL, well Jakie Fisher sure looks it. XD
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As usual, incredible work.
I would like to ask you something, thoguh. Have you ever thought about making a podcast series abotu these issues? I think you would have a good audience, starting with me. I love informative and fact-checked stuff like this.
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I've thought of it, but I'm not as good a speaker as a writer. Moreover, I've never found podcasts interesting.
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I see your point. I do like your videos, I just thought you could make awesome podcasts.
And regarding them not being interesting, I'll just show you what got me into podcasts, maybe you'll like it ayhow. I surelly did.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrEhoA…
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HMS Swift was actually only ever applied to sloops and gunboats prior to this so-called 'destroyer leader'.
A C&M Party is a Care & Maintenance Party.
Ah, the LCS class, that is going to be one hell of a presentation. Speaking of which, did you hear that the DoD cancelled the Littoral Combat Ship procurement in favour of constructing the replacement for the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate. What's the replacement going to be? Up-armoured LCSs of course!
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Thanks for clarifying on the name "Swift"; I must have confused it with "Swiftsure".
Also, thanks for clarifying the C & M Party term. I was pretty sure it meant something like that, but I couldn't find a definition for it anywhere on the internet.
I'm slowly building a Warship Disaster profile on the LCS' (this one is unique among all of the candidates on my list, because it encompasses two different classes in one presentation), but it's going to take a long time. There's so much wrong with everything about these ships, it's overwhelming.
But fear not, there are many other awful warships in the queue. XD
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Indeed, Swiftsure was the battleship name, though it was adopted a fleet sub that could be a candidate for your new series.
It is somewhat vague term that many Commonwealth navies threw around rather liberally, typically when ships were taken out of service for refitting, but it was also used occasionally to hide the fact a warship was about to be decommissioned by giving it the appearance of a refit, which is probably what happened with the Swift.
And the LCS, my bloody word is that going to be one hell of a trial, but I look forward to seeing what other failures the World's Navies have constructed over the years. BTW I could link you to a wargame simulation AAR that pit LCSs against the PLAN in the South China Sea that showed how poorly they would have performed in a real world scenario, as well as a couple of others involving the F-22 and F-35.
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The LCS ships are Patrol Boats, but oversold as an all-singing, all-dancing, universal coastal small combatant. As a result, they're too large and heavy, too fast, too unreliable, too expensive, too fragile, and too under-equipped to perform any mission effectively.
When the program was initiated, they were supposed to be Missile Corvettes like the Sa'ar 5 class (which was originally used as the example of what the LCS was to do). By the time it had gone through every office possible in the Navy, it had devolved into the form they take today.
The requirement was also for only a single class, but the Navy distorted LCS into a corporate welfare program, and bought both competing classes.
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Pretty much exactly what happened. Besides, it's not me who needs convincing that they're not frigates, it's the DoD.
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