Dreadnought Holiday

At the end of the day though they were pilots. What they were mostly doing was most likely hanging around in bars telling everybody they were pilots...

Not much gunnery spotting with the advent of radar (and the rise of the carrier and hence decent opposition).

I think Matapan is sometimes cited as the last time the Walrus was used in the role, for example?

Blücher - NIRA

This one might be of interest to #NavalHistory Bluesky. The Norwegian Coastal Administration has released an underwater 3D photo scan of the wreck of the German heavy cruiser Blücher, sunk in the Oslofjord in April 1940. Super cool!
#ww2 #norway #blücher

dykkerteknikk.nira.app/a/Ip_mJ3EFQK...

Feel sorry for Amy, but this series is instantly better.

Museo Egizio Turin photo showing a small, dark-blue, core-formed, round glass jar which tapers in at the shoulders below the neck. It has yellow, white, and light blue festoon decoration trailed around the main body. There is a single yellow trail just below the neck of the jar. There is a dark-blue circular glass lid, the top of which is adorned with two dark-blue duck heads with yellow bills, a yellow trailed stripe on the top of each duck’s head, and indents for their eyes. The jar is displayed on a perspex (?) stand against a grey background. Glass jar dimensions: 7.6 cm x 9.6 cm. Core-forming is one of the earliest glassmaking techniques. Glassmakers shaped the body of the vessel around a core, wound colored trails around it. They then let the vessel cool and removed the core.

A 3,500 year-old Egyptian glass cosmetic jar with two little duck heads!

Glass was a relatively new material at that time, so this jar would have been a precious possession.

From Merit’s beauty case, found inside Theban tomb (TT8) of Merit and her husband Kha in 1906. 📷 Museo Egizio

#Archaeology

Not sure of the derivation off the top of my head, I'm afraid.

Flip side is that I saw a Monet exhibition at the National and everybody else was completely fried by the time you got to the real bangers, so I had them to myself.

It was worse than that - it was starboard and larboard until the 19th century...

Given HMS Satisfaction was on its way to Jamaica, negligence doesn't begin to describe it...

Shredded Wheat was only invented in 1893, so there's your problem right there.

I'd come across this myself, and yeah, it's almost shockingly recent.

To flip it the other way though, how advanced must seafaring have been in relatively early times to bag virtually everywhere else?

Hang on! I think we've found him!

Black and white photo showing a kettle on the sill of a very dirty window. Immediately outside the window is the very recognisable steelwork of the Forth Bridge.

My dad has turned up this photo from a visit "many years ago" to the Forth Bridge. I think it's taken from what he calls the howff, just below track level, used by the maintenance workers.

I guess when you're engaged in a proverbially endless task, you need a wee cup of tea once in a while.

The Worst Muse has struck again!!!

Thank you John.

"Sir, I must beg to express my regrets that my late command the Satisfaction is lost on her way to the Caribbean station."

"Jamaica?"

"That's a matter for the courts martial sir but I deny all."

(yeah, ok, it was headed to the Netherlands first to collect the cargo of some nob who wanted it shifting to the Caribbean, but still...)

Imagine it - you set full sail on what you fondly imagine is the Irish Sea, and something entirely unexpected like Holland pops up underneath your keel. The resulting conversations are not exactly going to feature on one's personal highlight reel.

Given HMS Satisfaction was on its way to Jamaica, negligence doesn't begin to describe it...

I've thrown a copy of Nigel Slater's Eat at them so they can pick something to try (or use it as a starting point for something they feel safer with). Most of the recipes are pretty quick and simple, so lots to go at.

You ever found a KitKat where an entire finger is nothing but chocolate?

My eldest absolutely did this, but aged 16 they've suddenly switched back on to vitamins and the green stuff that provides it. It's quite fun throwing different textures and flavours at them again.

Good news - we've found a lifeboat from White Star liner Oceanic.

Probably a bit late though - they'll have long since eaten the cabin boy.

The impact of the Prussian war plays into it as well.

I think the big battleships skew perceptions in the casual historical Anglosphere (this account is as guilty as any). These are the lads that turned out armoured cruisers, started the path to destroyers and pushed towards effective submarines.

With cope cages the idea of triggering premature detonation isn't unsound, even if the implementations are jerry-rigged and ineffective. And don't forget we're only likely to see the videos of times they didn't work.

Heck, jumping overboard and pushing them away worked for early torpedoes...

Nets became obsolete for a variety of reasons - the addition of net cutters, the kinetic energy rose exponentially in the 20th century and torps now run deeper to explode under the keel.

(I think we're basically arguing the same thing by now though, tbf!)

The advantage right now is that the Russian navy is unable doctrinally, tactically and strategically to cope with naval drones, they have an effect well outside their cost, and they fit within Ukraine's budget. The Jeune École would have loved them.

The experience of the Dardenelles and Norway suggests that's not true though. Battleships could not survive in that environment.

The LCS concept founders on the duality that a) ships will get fucked up inshore so make them cheap and expendable, and b) crews will be entirely happy with this idea.

I meant as a criticism of Ukraine!

I genuinely think they're batting above average; I just hope that's enough.

I think it's a valid comparison in that Ukraine is using the changing technology to close the gap, but the overall strategy (and strategic position) is very different to the Jeune École theories.