(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best naval history books

Probably the best academic historian turning his hand to popular naval history that I have come across is NAM Rodger. I would thoroughly recommend:

• The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, Vol 1: 660-1649
  
  
• The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, Vol II: 1649-1815
  
  These two balance clear campaign, social, political and technological histories, with as many tables, data, original sources and other appendices as you could desire. Vol III is on its way.
  
  
• The Wooden World: Anatomy of the Georgian Navy
  
  An astonishing social dissection of the lives of those on a Navy warship and how they worked together in the century before the Napoleonic era. His take on discipline (rum, sodomy and the lash = a load of bollocks, a crew is only effective if it works on mutual respect and consent) and naval provisioning (naval food was often better than the working classes could get on land, and the care and logistics involved were massive) are revelatory.
  
  Edit:
  
  What I would really like is a follow up to Wooden World. He hints at significant differences in social and disciplinary relationships between the era covered and the subsequent "classic" Napoleonic era. Again in Command of the Ocean he also refers to major changes from the Napoleonic into the Victorian era, with a much more class-based command and disciplinary structure based less on merit and consent and more on the idea that certain Britons were born to command, the idea of an officer class. Hopefully Vol III will cover this.
  
  Edit 2: Fixed shitty wording.

Power

>Type 45 travels at a top speed of 32 knots to AB's 30

At what loading? And what suggests that the Burke is limited to 30 kts?

The Zumwalt, for instance, was spec'd to only 30 knots or so but did 33.5 in trials on what looked like a light load. (Also, Zumwalt displaces 40-50% more than Burkes, produces the same 78 MW_shaft, but can still do 33.5 knots. It stands that the much lighter Burke could go faster on the same power (assuming similar admiralty coeffs).)

>Type 45 uses IEP and a combined diesel-electric-gas setup so its shp is difficult to determine and there aren't many sources on it, though it should be a power of 50-60kW+

How are the Daring's engines geared to the shafts? Is it mechanical? Or electric-only? If electric-only, then regardless of total GT+diesel power, the shaft power is limited by the motors, which are 20 MW each. It appears only the electric motors are physically coupled to the props, so total shaft power should be 40 MW. The 2x 2MW diesel alternators don't contribute to shp unless the GTs are operating below capacity/damaged/off. And while the GTs are rated 25 MW each, their associated alternators are only rated to output 21 MW each.

So while total power is 54 MW, only 46 MWe is generated, and only 40 MW is delivered to the shaft. So Burkes still get ~2x shp.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Navy-Type-Destroyer-Manual/dp/0857332406

>the AB's 70-80kW

Burkes produce 78 MW_brake. Plus an additional 7.5 MWe of diesel generators on top of that (not available for propulsion obviously).

>Type 45 is also due an upgrade in this regard, adding a third engine

That would be very unusual. I don't recall that being done before. And I don't think the design could accommodate it. GTs have a large footprint (especially the intakes/uptakes) in the coveted heart of the ship where virtually all the volume is already spoken for. They're very tightly integrated into the ship with their gearing, shafts, shock mounts, light armor, careful arrangements to facilitate maintenance and minimize power/propulsion loss (eg multi-engine) in various damage cases (IEP makes arrangements more flexible, but there's still electrical distribution). The voluminous intakes/uptakes run practically from the very bottom of the ship to the very top. To carve out room for a third GT, you'd have to relocate a lot of important stuff from aux machine rooms, to damage control stations, the CIC, the radars, topside launchers, w/e.

To be affordable, you'd have to design it for but not with a third engine. But installing one is not painless. Just replacing existing engines isn't supposed to happen until a major overhaul/upgrade (or if it takes damage, see: DDG-1001) and often includes cutting huge holes in the ship (although I believe some are designed to be lifted out through the stack). But making provisions for a third engine without installing said engine isn't cost effective either. An LM2500+G4 costs just $10-20 million. The concomitant design changes will cost several times that. If you want to save money/fuel/maintenance, install a third engine from the outset, just don't turn it on. That's apparently how the Type 45 was envisioned to use its second GT+diesel most of the time anyway.

So unless you designed the ship for-but-not-with a third GT, it'd be ruinously expensive to add it after-the-fact. It'd be easier to splice in a hull insertion. You'd need to find some crippling design flaw to justify that kind of drastic modification.

So that's why you piqued my interest with "third engine!" Thankfully, I don't think such a calamity occurred. It looks like they're just replacing the old/current 2x 2MW diesel generators with new 3x 2MW diesel generators. https://www.rina.org.uk/Type_45_to_get_third_diesel_generator_to_overcome_problems.html That articles includes more background on IEP issues and continuing work. TLDR: teething issues, insufficient funds for testing

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AAW

>the [Sylver VLS] design is one-deck-level-deep, allowing them to be individually expanded where necessary

Are you sure? The total launcher is 6m tall. The 5m cell alone would be a pretty tall deck, even with 1-2 m protruding above 1-Deck. The A50s look like they span two decks (2-Deck and 3-Deck), right down to the waterline (which is better for CG anyway).

>it currently has 48 SYLVER silos, it is designed to go up to 64

I didn't know that. To the wiki!

"There is provision for another 12[74][84] strike-length VLS tubes forward of the existing VLS. These could be Mk 41 tubes for Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAM) and LRASM, or Sylver A70 for the MdCN derivative of Storm Shadow." 84: "Early in the design phase it was estimated that 16 strike-length tubes could be fitted and this number has been widely circulated, but as of 2010 the RN website said 12."

>There is also the capability to easily replace them with the more versatile LM Mk41s

I think that's just in reference to the 12 cells yet to be fitted, rather than replacing current Sylver A50 cells.

>The RN believes in multi-layered AAW, prioritising tracking at longer ranges and interception at mid-close ranges with a one-shot-one-kill policy, as this is what has been shown to be the most effective, a lesson partly learnt from the Falklands War. This is why the long-range interception capabilities and slightly fewer missiles are not so important, as it does not abide by RN philosophy.

Let's take that at face value for sake of argument. By the same token, if you run a Burke on the same SLS shot doctrine, you'd get 2-3x the kills because it has (at least) 2-3x the interceptors. You could argue that the Type 45s get better Pks, but probably not 2-3x better or near-perfect (that'd be difficult to substantiate for or against anyway).

Also, SLS is very difficult unless you have either a) supreme interceptor Pks or b) very reliable/capable local+point defenses and soft-kill systems to chase down leakers. I don't know anything about RN defensive EW, but I don't think you should rely on 2x Phalanx. The RIM-116 upgrade you mentioned would help, though I didn't find any concrete plans of it going through yet.

SLS is possible though. The USN itself is moving towards a single-layer, medium-range based defense (rather than multilayered from long- to short-range). But USN includes more than just Phalanx: a) lasers, railguns, and EW to stop leakers (TTT ~0) and to augment medium-range defense, b) SSLS for the time being, and c) a long-range, OTH, offensive AAW effort. Which leads me to…

>This is why the long-range interception capabilities… are not so important, as it does not abide by RN philosophy.

Offensive AAW is important for thinning out the archers before they launch their payloads. The Chinese H-6 can carry 6 AShMs, the B-1B can carry 24, and Soviet Naval Aviation is in/famous for its Backfire regiments armed with Kh-22s. An unmolested strike package (flown by a near-peer) has a sporting chance of saturating your defenses, especially if you magazines are shallow. Even if commanding a CBG in the 80s, you did not want to let your adversary release all their missiles, then wait until "mid-close ranges" to shoot down each and every missile:

They [Soviets] roughly had a Regiment per [our USN] carrier. In a straight-forward engagement, the issue would have been "in doubt" at best. If a strike regiment caught a CV by surprise it would have been curtains. An alerted CV would have a better than even chance of surviving, but probable losses would have been severe. But the Regiment running through fighter opposition to their launch points and then getting back out would have taken crippling losses. They would have not been able to mount a second strike and would have been effectively destroyed if not annihilated. If a missile trap is set so that the regiment is climbing to launch altitude over a missile ship it doesn't know about until the radar comes up and missiles start impacting, the fight will be over before it barely starts. So it was critical for the target to be identified and located prior to the regiment being committed. How to Hide a Task Force http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-031.php

Arguably the RN may never require its forces to be capable of standing against a peer/near-peer's air force (eg just another Argentina), and that's fine (maybe), but we're talking about the "best" AAW destroyer, aren't we? :P

>long-range interception

Affords your escortee maneuvering room (eg deception), less tightly glued to escorts.

> slightly fewer missiles are not so important, as it does not abide by RN philosophy.

Not slightly more. A Burke can host multiple times more SAMs. Realistically about 2-3x more, with cells to spare for other missions, or up to 8x more in an impractical/unlikely loadout (all ESSMs).

>the USN, as it can afford to have more of everything where the RN needs a few ships to do the jobs of many

A Burke sounds great for the RN then :P Better than that single-job Daring, eh? Eh?

Eh. The USN also takes on a lot more missions and is spread pretty thin (three collisions in a couple of months, holy moly). The USN is a bit top-heavy with very capable multi-mission destroyers/cruisers than can "do the jobs of many." But without a lot of smaller assets (like OHPs, corvettes, ESB/MLP/AFSB/ESDs) to pick up constabulary missions, our 10,000 ton ships are stuck doing antipiracy without time for proper mx or training for the high-end fight (like ASW).

0. Looks like you have been reading sites like strategypage, my advise is to stay off those websites, It's better for your health.
   
   
1. String of Pearls is made up strategy for alarmist journalist, and reason for that is simple. China does not, will not in near future has control over the either the malacca straights or Sunda straight. So any investment in military infrastructure on the other side of that straight is a waste of resources. There is reason why China is so reluctant in securing naval docking station in Africa despite sending naval patrols there for last 6 years. (it quite amazing how long at sea these ships would go without docking anywhere, life must be pretty hard for these sailor. Which is probably those fleet usually go a pleasure tour to Europe and South America afterwards.) However it does not stop the media from creating a sensation about it, and make everything bigger than it really is.
   
   
2. As you have 一带一路 initiative is an economic policy, so far it just a bunch of empty talk. The only think that could be of value in that direction is the China-Iran pipeline, and that thing goes over land.
   
   
3. You really need to read The Influence of Sea Power Upon History again, everything we discussed here is not Mahanian strategy, or even modern interpretations of it. Hell, Mahan's vision of Asian strategic outlook is as far off target as it can be.
   
   
4. The Liaoning and new possible carrier China is building (100A is just a made up name by the internet, just like Shiliang) is really the dream of 刘华清, and the original crew that has brought the Varyag was actually discipline by by the Jiang-Zhu government, though Hu-Wen government did pick it up and made it into a carrier. China will it in same way US uses it, used to threaten small countries and protect Chinese interest. (For example in both Libya and Yemen all China could do is withdraw its citizens and basically abandon its assets there. While US can use it naval assets and supports the faction allied to it. However, look at where things are going, it appears China actually managed to minimize its losses, while the US digs the hole deeper and deeper. It did create an opportunity for political attacks on Hillary Clinton though). As for DF-21D, it's untested weapon that's based on asymmetrical warfare, which essentially on the opposite side of Mahan as he valued sea control and naval presences. If anything it is actually more line with the much criticized book 超限战.
   
   
5. In terms of grand strategy, China's maritime trade to primary to the US and its Allies (North America, Europe, Australia, ASEAN). If the conflict is a third party threatening the trade, US and its Allies will jump on it way before China could do it anything. (then accuse China as being a free rider) And it the conflict with the US, that trade does not exist anyways, what's use of a navy to protects it? As far as hydrocarbons from the middle east, pipeline over land would be better option (actually pipeline to Russian would be a even better option. Hell, the best option would be exploring hydraulic fracking in China, as China has the largest reserve of Shale gas in the world). On top of that, China is moving away from hydrocarbons anyways, for both national security and environmental reason.

Greetings, fellow warship enthusiasts! I regret that I am just now becoming aware of this wonderful community. I am Chris Miller, and over 30 years ago I wrote a book with my brother, David Miller.

David was a wonderfully intelligent man, who absolutely loved military intelligence and equipment assessment. He served in Her Majesty's Armed Forces, and afterwards went on to publish numerous books on these topics.

In 1985 he approached me with an offer to assist him in writing his latest book: Modern Naval Combat. It very well may have been the highlight of my life, working on a book, delving deep into a subject that we both loved deeply. We did not set out to write that book in some search of profit. Hardly! Rather, we did it to share our love of military hardware.

However, it deeply troubles me that a person is blatantly disrespecting our hard work and effort, by photocopying our entire book, page by page, and sharing it on this community. While the book has been out of print for many years, is still available used throughout online book sellers - including Amazon - some for less than a quid!

I would not begrudge a few photocopies, but it goes beyond the pale to post the entire book. Accordingly, I have attached an album of the remaining pages that the gentleman has not yet posted. I would rather share it with you wonderful people, a gift from one of the authors.

Album of Remaining Pages of Modern Naval Combat

Other books that David authored:
Modern Submarine Warfare

Modern Land Combat

Carriers: The Men and the Machine

Modern Sub-hunters

I read the book, Brave Ship, Brave Men about this ship years ago. It is a GREAT book! One thing it said was that the only thing that held the ship together was the Mine laying tracks. It was a converted mine layer.

Great human interest story of the ships commissioning and shakedown and of the battle. So many stories of heroism! Wonderful book!

During that period it was a balancing act of a few primary factors: speed, guns, and armor. The amount of armor and guns directly impacted both the size and the weight of the vessel, and this in turn effected the speed.

At the time, the pinnacle of tactics during Naval Battles was what is known as "Crossing the T". Essentially, one line of ships would cut-off the other, and in doing so were able to bring all their guns to bear on their opponent. Likewise, their opponent could not bring all of their guns to bear to retaliate. This diagram shows what it would have generally looked like.

For a tactic like that to succeed you needed, as a battleship, a good combination of guns, speed, and armor. A classic example of this would be Admiral Count Heihachiro Togo and his victory over the Russians at Tsuhima in 1904. Both sides had guns that could fire at about the same range (and the bigger the gun, the bigger the range and the more destructive power). William Pakenham, who was a Royal Navy observer on-board Admiral Togo's ship, stated "when 12 inch guns are fired, shots from 10 inch guns pass unnoticed, while, for all the respect they instill, 8 inch or 6 inch might as well be pea shooters". Basically, the goal was to have the biggest guns possible on-board. This provides maximum firepower and range.

Admiral Togo had one more advantage over the Russians: Speed. He had about six or seven knots advantage over the Russians. If you have greater speed and range, then you can determine where and when the fight actually happens - by engaging the enemy from a longer distance and even moving away to keep that advantage. So if you can control those factors you can control the battle.

"Armor is speed" is something Jacky Fisher (important British admiral, key in the conception and design of HMS Dreadnought) is reported as having once said. This is because the more steel you put on the boat, the slower it is going to go. Unless of course you have new and more powerful methods of propulsion/power, which would allow you to attain a higher speed with more weight. Armor of course is important, as your ships need to be able to withstand hits. HMS Warsprite at Jutland for example, sustained 11 hits. While she was severely damage (and ordered home to Roysoth) she survived those hits and lived to see another day (a lot of days to be precise, she was engaged in WWII as well).

As u/Vonadler notes as well, money is a key issue. HMS Dreadnought cost approximately £1,784,000 in 1905. As an upgrade over other ship designs, she only cost £181,000 more. However, you have to multiply that by the amount of ships you want to build and then the number only gets more astronomical. In August 1914, the Royal Navy had 22 Battleships in commission (with 40 Pre-Dreadnoughts which are the older battleship designs that came before the Dreadnought in 1905) with another 13 under construction. And the price had only gone up since 1905. The Germans for example only had 15 built with 5 under construction. However I disagree that Vanguard was about 10 million GBP more to construct. Vanguard was built in the 1940s, 40 years after Dreadnought. Using [this inflation calculator] (http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/) I compared £11,530,503 in 1941 (the year that Vanguard was laid down) to 1905 (the year Dreadnought was laid down). In 1905, Vanguard would have cost about £5,291,677.27 pounds. A substantial increase to be sure, but only of about 297% compared to 546%. The overall point stands however, that bigger Battleships with more armor and whatnot do cost significantly more than their smaller counterparts.

And with ships you do not just have the cost of building. maintenance, crew (in the case of the German Battleships 1000+ crew members), fuel, etc... Those costs add up quickly. u/thefourthmaninaboat is also correct that the infrastructure was also a factor in Battleship design. On the other hand, cruise ships didn't really have to contend with all of this. They had their own design challenges to be sure, but armor for example wasn't really a factor.

This is my first "real" reply on this sub, so I hope it's been helpful and informative!

----------------
Sources

• Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie
  
  
• From Imperial Splendor to Internment: The Imperial German Navy in the First World War by Nicolas Wolz
  
  
• Warships and Sea Battles of World War One published by Beekman House
  
  
• Inflation Calculator

The U.S. Navy recently established a "Navy Leadership and Ethics Center" at the Naval War College that has some material that might be useful (e.g. a concise 'wheelbook' of desired attributes). The wheelbook is too short to be anything more than a quick distillation though.

To be honest I'm not sure the Navy has anything much more directive in nature about leadership. We have a letter from the last CNO called the "Charge of Command" which all new COs are required to read. But our tradition is that leadership is something too personal to a Sailor (officer or enlisted) to turn into a cookbook recipe or a procedure where we say "follow these steps and we'll assume you must be a good leader".

We also have a little bit of guidance from Navy Regulations (the overarching general regulations for the Navy and Marine Corps). E.g. Chapter 8 talks about what we expect of our commanding officers and their subordinates.

> "0802.4 The commanding officer and his or her subordinates shall exercise leadership through personal example, moral responsibility and judicious attention to the welfare of persons under their control or supervision. Such leadership shall be exercised in order to achieve a positive, dominant influence on the performance of persons in the Department of the Navy."

So leadership is something we care about, something we write and read about and all of that would be useful in discovering what we implicitly want in our leaders. But I think it would be better to read about what we think good leadership is than to look for an official Navy list.

Sorry, but I disagree with the analysis. To start with, even the title is absurd.

The PT boats, while cheap and well armed, were rarely good for more than harassment. In encounter after encounter in the South Pacific, especially the Guadalcanal campaign, they rarely sunk or even disrupted enemy naval forces - and we generally seen by Big Navy as a nuisance. They MTBs weren't called the "Hooligan Fleet" for nothing. Good for supporting operations - including search and rescue and scouting - they never really lived up to the hyperbolic glory they seem to enjoy, surely in no small part because of JFK's heroics and post-war TV shows. There is a good reason the Navy scrapped the entire idea of MTBs after the war and never really took it up again with any enthusiasm, even with the advent of anti-ship cruise missiles.

If you're looking for small craft that were really unsung heroes of the USN in WWII, look at the Navy's gunboats. They guided and provided close fire support to nearly all amphibious landings and many amphibious reconnaissance operations from 1943 on, did the exact same anti-barge patrolling the PT boats did, and even served as anti-aircraft pickets against the waves of kamikazes at Okinawa, right there along with the destroyers.

A nice counterpoint to the original linked and promoted article: http://www.historynet.com/the-truth-about-devil-boats.htm

For a good idea on the shape of global shipping this map from The Atlantic is a favorite visual of mine: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/see-map-worlds-shipping-lanes/325643/

While for those actually interested in spending a bit of money one of the best recent books on the looming SCS challenge is from 2 professors at the Naval War College: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Over-Pacific-Challenge-ebook/dp/B0052LJC8S/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1486126851&sr=8-1&keywords=james+holmes+china&linkCode=sl1&tag=cdrsalamander-20&linkId=799263ef43bc8f45405346bd229f15a4

Its good, still relevant, but it also presumes at least a passing familiarity with the US Navy, its history, and modern trends, but still perfectly readable for most anyone.

The US Naval Institute Blog is also a great starting point for learning about past, present, and future trends in our very aquatic world. https://blog.usni.org/

U-boat.net for a very good online source on German submarines in both World Wars, more encyclopedic than a book, however.

Wolfpack and Battle of the Atlantic are two very readable and good books for a general overview, but there are certainly more academic or exhaustive books as well.

The U-boat War is an oldie but a goodie, written by the same person who wrote das Boot, the fictional counterpart.

On the American side, several submariners wrote very good memoirs. Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey gives a great overview of both life at sea in an American submarine in the Pacific, but also of operational details, how the patrols worked, etc.

Great for river brawling. Kind of interesting how for that brief period of time, naval armor totally outmatched naval firepower.


Edit: You should check out The Naval History of the United States Volume I and Volume II if you haven't already. They have some great accounts of early US Naval battles, including lots of the river campaigns of the Civil War. Best of all the kindle edition is free.

Zero, The Story of Japan's Air War in the Pacific-as Seen by the Enemy: I'm trying to write something based on aviation history, for nanowrimo. This book was authored, in part, by one of the all time great aeronautical engineers, Jiro Horikoshi.

The Right Stuff: I loved the movie, as a kid.

Why the West Rules - for Now: A /r/askhistorians recommended read.

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pear Harbor: One of the books that informed Mad Men.

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles: I'm a musician.

Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead: I'm a musician.

DisneyWar: I find Hollywood fascinating.

Painting With Light: I love film photography.

Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime: The Soviet Union was a fascinating bit of history - so much political drama and socioeconomic engineering but still with de facto Tsars.

[Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EGJ7L8U/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3P6ROMQS808NO&coliid=I1EIIL7QDPI54R): Another /r/askhistorians recommendation.

The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past: Another /r/askhistorians recommendation.

The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World): Another /r/askhistorians recommendation.

Blind Man's Bluff is a great book. Also, if you like submarines I'd recommend:

Rig Ship for Ultra Quiet - Subs from an Enlisted POV. Non-Fiction.

Making a Submarine Officer - A story of the USS San Francisco (SSN 711) - Subs from an Officer POV. Non-Fiction.

Stalking the Red Bear: The True Story of a U.S. Cold War Submarine's Covert Operations Against the Soviet Union - Subs from the Captain's POV. Non-Fiction.

Firing Point - Great story that they based the movie Hunter Killer on. Very different (and much better) than the movie. Fiction.

Red November: Inside the Secret U.S.-Soviet Submarine War - Arguably better than Blind Man's bluff. Various accounts of covert sub ops from '46-'92 and the evolution of associated technology. Non-Fiction (written like Fiction to protect the tech and sources. Reads like a great story.).

Sea Assault was an excellent book about this battle. Although factual, it read like a Tom Clancy thriller. If you enjoy it, Black May was another great WWII submarine read. Very much in the Red Storm Rising pantheon.

Someone mentioned some alternatives such as the Kostromitnov which is pretty good as a Tier 10 given its basically the same size as a Midway. Also keep in mind the projects sometimes got redesigned, if I recall the 72 for example had two differing designs with one being much larger.

A good book on the never were Soviet ships is Stalin's Ocean-going Fleet: Soviet Naval Strategy and Shipbuilding Programs, 1935-53 which includes the various design specs for completed and incomplete ships, including the various iterations which is pretty helpful for ships like the Kronstadt which had a couple of wildly differing designs when it came to armament for example.

And if you wanted to have a no torpedo proposal I would think it would be better to have AP and HE DBs instead of HE DBs and HE level bombers. Giving it a mix of damage types rather than 3 sources of HE spam would make it more interesting/useful while less annoying to play against.

If he liked the story of Wojtek, check out also these, they're WWII but more adventure than martyrological gloom:

• "Dywizjon 303" (English edition here ) and "Dziękuję ci, kapitanie" (English ) by Arkady Fiedler
  
  
• basically anything by Janusz Meissner
  
  He could also give a try to the Pan Samochodzik series by Zbigniew Nienacki (starts with "Wyspa złoczyńców"). It's aimed at younger teens, but the protagonist is adult. Quests for precious historical artifacts with James Bond vibe.
  
  Greetings for your grandpa! :)

This is my first time posting on /r/askhistorians, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hopefully it's acceptable. Best source I have is this handy book—Piracy: The Complete History, by Angus Konstam—which really runs the gamut in terms of its coverage of piracy.

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The first and most notable example of the "pirate dialect" that we all know and love comes from this guy: Robert Newton, who played Long John Silver in the 1950 Treasure Island movie. It's not certain exactly what caused him to be accepted for the role (i.e did the director already have a preconceived idea of how a pirate 'should' sound), but there is the suggestion that the West Country accent did not stumble into piracy by accident: there's been a strong maritime tradition in the region, and some of the most famous British pirates and privateers came from here, including Sir Francis Drake, who hailed from a town in Devon. The fact that he lived some four hundred years ago appears to be something of a non-issue in terms of the accent, as the West Country dialect has remained remarkably unchanged apparently since the Anglo-Saxons and Old English. However, due to just the sheer length of time, it could be argued that this is coincidental. Regardless, after Robert Newton's first appearance as a pirate, his accent did indeed become ubiquitous as the language of pirates even to this day (well, most pirates). Before him, there were three English language Treasure Island movies, two of which were silent (1918 and 1920), and the third of which (1934) starred an American in the role of Long John Silver.


So, in summary, it might have been representative of some pirate and privateer accents over the course of history—of course, given how basically every country in the world with access to the sea has had pirates, it is not going to represent every pirate, nor every time period of pirates—but this is not entirely certain. What is known, is that Disney hired Robert Brown to create what has become the most popular interpretation of a pirate ever, and he happened to hail from a part of England which has produced a large number of sailors over the centuries.

You're welcome. If your interest in the Pacific theater is broader, you may also consider "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. It revisits the battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective and is excellent.

Other extremely good works are John B. Lundstrom's The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway and The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. Despite the appearance of these titles, they are not dry academic works, but full of interesting facts and quite fun reading.

Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-194 by D. M. Giangreco is an excellent work examining the end of the war in the Pacific, what the impact of strategic bombing was (nuclear and conventional), how the US and her allies planned to invade Kyushu and Honshu, how much the Japanese knew and how far developed their preparations were, and reasonable estimates of how events would play out if the invasions had actually been carried out. He examines how the details of each sides' plans would play out, the impact of nuclear weapons in the tactical role, how actual weather conditions and events would impact the land and sea portions of the campaigns and more.

I own all of the above and recommend them whole-heartedly.

A brief search also gave videos of several speeches/talks by Jon Parshall, but I haven't viewed them yet. Given the quality of his and Tully's work in Shattered Sword, I plan to watch each of them now.

Indeed, the general estimate of people being killed in the remainder of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere is 250,000 per month, and the recent 2008 book Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 (the "-1947" refers to our and the Japanese plans if bombing and Operation Starvation didn't work before then) makes or cites an estimate of 400,000 per month.

Plus of course we didn't want to suffer the casualties that would have been incurred in two invasions, which would have involved liberal use of more nukes (and those who didn't know about the Manhattan Project, which of course was totally unproven before the Trinity test 3 weeks before Hisoshima, were preparing for liberal use of chemical weapons), we're still using Purple Hearts, the medal you get for being wounded in combat, from the first batch of four or so of 500,000 that MacArthur ordered before the invasions.

Which per the book also would not have gone as planned due to a typhoon zapping a great deal of material in Okinawa after the surrender but before the date set for the invasion of Kyuushuu. One other interesting tidbit was that there was one project in the US that had a higher priority that the Manhattan Project, it was to create a super-Mulberry artificial harbor off the coast of the main island.

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D.M. Giangreco wrote an interesting book a few years ago detailing just how difficult it would have been for the American military to sustain an invasion of the Home Islands, and how that was a major factor in the decision to drop the bombs.

About as ready as it was possible to be.

There were very few places that the Allies (primarily the US) could invade and still be within comfortable range of Okinawa, the staging base for any invasion, AND have appropriate terrain for such a landing.

Because of this, it was relatively simple to figure out exactly where the invasion would be heading. Kyushu, the southermost of the home islands, would be hit in November 1945, and only the "bottom third" of the island taken. A number of major airbases would be built to support the invasion of the Kanto Plain around Tokyo in March of 1946.

While Japan didn't know exactly when the attack would come, they'd been moving troops to Kyushu for some time, and as the US came closer and closer, moved more and more troops and aircraft into position for the defensive of Kyushu, called Operation Ketsugo.

These were given plenty of time to dig into the terrain for cover, terrain that sometimes wasn't really as great as the Americans thought. What little armor they had was moved to the island and hidden away as a mobile reserve. Aircraft by the thousands for kamikaze missions were positioned in caves or well camouflaged, to be launched when the attack was just beginning. US Intelligence expected some 6500 kamikaze to be available; at the time of surrender, they were horrified to discover the actual number was closer to 13000. By August, 1945, there were close to 900000 troops on Kyushu as well.

Operation Olympic would almost certainly be won by the Allies. That's pretty much not in question. The question is, would the American public, tired of war and freshly victorious in Europe, be willing to pay the butcher's bill involved with just the first part of the invasion of Japan. The Japanese high command was betting on making the invasion forces bleed and the answer being "no."

Immediate sources:

US Army MacArthur Reports V1, Ch XIII: *Downfall: The Plan for the Invasion of Japan

DM Giangreco: Operation Downfall: The Devil was in the Details PDF warning.

DM Giangreco: Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan 1945 - 1947