More Comments on Murfett's "Naval Warfare 1919-45"

I am still struggling on with this [1], nearing the end now, but have to report this gem:

"Strangely, the Japanese submarine fleet with unquestionably the best torpedo amongst the active combatants - the Type 93 or 'Long Lance', and the even faster, longer range Type 95 - did not make as big a mark on the Pacific Campaign as they ought to have done."

I won't quibble about the use to the name 'Long Lance', but note it is not a contemporary Japanese name for these weapons.

Type 93: 24" surface ship oxygen torpedo, not a submarine torpedo

Type 95: 21" submarine oxygen torpedo (and I'm not sure that Morrison applied the term 'Long Lance' to this).

Of these the Type 93 is very much the longer range weapon (as would be expected given its greater size - other things being equal). Also there is no significant difference between their top speeds.

What galls me about this is that these things are common knowledge among those with an interest in (relatively) modern naval warfare and if you do not know about such things they can be looked up on-line without any trouble. So why does Murfett not know these things? One slip is excusable, we all make mistakes, but Murfett does this again and again. Another example is his overselling of MAD, which could be useful in conjunction with sonobuoys and Fido but on its own of very little value.

References:

1. Murfett, M., Naval Warfare 1919-45; An operational history of the war at sea, Routlege, 2009

Some Comments on Malcolm Murfett's book "Naval Warfare 1919-45"

I have been struggling with this book [1] now for some time, continuing to read it because the approach and topic are interesting but always on the verge of throwing it across the room because of oddities which make me doubt the authors qualifications as an author and a naval historian.

I don't want to go through this page by page listing the things that have annoyed me, but I will describe those that I encountered this morning reading pages 402-408.

1. Page 407. Introduction of the Tallboy bomb: Mass of bomb given in both pounds and kg. Nothing wrong with that but it would have been nice to see a bit more about this bomb, mention of Barnes Wallis and 617 squadron at this point.

2. Page 407. "Despite the impenetrable gloom that settled over the fjord as a result of the smokescreen, one of these 'Tallboy' bombs managed to find the quarry striking her about fifty feet (15.2m) from the forward stem of the ship." (my emphasis) I don't like the language of this sentence in general, but that is just a stylistic preference but the part in bold indicates either poor proof reading or a significant lack of familiarity with marine terminology. The latter is a significant warning sign in a work on naval history.

3. Page 407. We have reference to 5.4 ton bombs, leaving us to do some arithmetic and cross referencing to establish that this is a reference to Tallboy (which we have been told is 12,000 pounds or 5,443 kilo previously).

I suppose these are not very serious annoyances in themselves and limited to two pages out of the six I read, but they are just things that I note in passing. Similar annoyances occur every few pages when I am reading stuff I am familiar with, this leaves the suspicion that there are comparable problems in material that I am not particularly familiar with.

References:

1. Murfett, M., Naval Warfare 1919-45; An operational history of the war at sea, Routlege, 2009