Re: History repeats itself
Robert Sneddon,
I was going to type something like that about the US battleships in Pearl. But couldn't remember how many of them were old and slow, and how many modern. However from memory quite a few of them were pretty short range, as well as slow - and were pretty much useless at Pearl Harbour. The US Navy was not forward-deployed to protect the Philipines - something that had been discussed pre-war but not done for various reasons. But that's where those battleships would have needed to be based, to be useful. However that would have meant the ground troops (and more importantly) large airforce reqired to protect them - which the US simply didn't have. Which I'd imagine is why they didn't do it.
This wouldn't have made much difference to the fate of the battleships, but would have made saving the carriers a much more uncertain proposition in 41.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
