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Notes -
Still on Castles of Steel. It’s more tense than I expected, and for surprising reasons. Everyone going into the war expected Britannia to rule the waves. Everyone today knows that Britain did, in fact, keep control of the sea, and obviously went on to win the war. The tension comes from all the disasters along the way.
The child’s model of naval warfare starts with two piles of ships, which are dashed against each other until one side is out of hit points. Both British and German strategies were chosen according to sophisticated versions of such a model, which agreed that the British would dominate an open fight on account of having more ships. In theory, Germany would only accept lopsided fights against smaller elements of the British navy, relying on torpedoes and mines to level the playing field. The British, then, had a veto on any German naval operations so long as they could avoid throwing it away.
And by God, they tried their best. Poor training, executive meddling, insane deployment orders—the British continually courted disaster. They had a near-perfect intelligence advantage thanks to lucky recovery of German codes, but they repeatedly failed to actually use it. When they did manage to engage the enemy, their gunnery was generally unimpressive, and tactical errors kept them from dealing crippling damage. Meanwhile, Germany kept trying operations which should have been suicide. Everyone on both sides thought they’re trying heroic maneuvers and devious plans, and but they're really risking everything for minimal gain, often playing exactly into enemy hands. The net results were unbelievable quantities of metal, coal, and human lives sent up in flames.
So the book is tense. Everything has to end in stalemate or disaster, and the question is usually who made the fatal mistake this time. That doesn’t detract from the overall experience. I want to recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the period. I also want to wave it in the face of anyone promoting an elaborate strategy for, well, anything. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
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