Dreadnought

Im assuming that you mean the Constitution and Victory and the answer is a definate YES. The USN holds the Constitution very deeply as far as tradition and as far back as the Continental Navy's inception they were always outmatched by the British and French, ship for ship, gun for gun and especially in experience at sea and always went into battle none the less. We didnt always win but we didnt always loose either.

The smaller of the ships (Constitution) would need every tool in the box to out run and out manuver Victory and if smart concentrate her gunnery in the important places (more or less waterline and below and or rudder) or even perhaps draw her into the shallows hoping she would ground and then open full broadsides. As far as boarding parties go the advantage would certainly be Victory's. Constitution would have to sink her and certainly rule out boarding parties all together. Thanks.

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Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Bluesman

You'd have to be as mad as a rat in a coffee can, and if ever there were cause for relief of a captain by his second, that would be IT, and no court would convict on mutiny.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

JAD_333

Yes, excuse me, I meant Constitution.

On the contrary, the US admiralty wouldn't risk a perfectly good frigate when its navy is so small. No captain would do it on his own. Of course, we are assuming both ships are in good condition, ably commanded and the wind is ideal for manoeuvering.

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Dreadnought

Sir,
I would rather be tried by the admirality for endangering the ship and its crew (not storm or seas related mind you.) before being tried for failure to engage the enemy when chance presented itself. In being the captain (assumed) that call stands with no one but myself when at sea as I would be tried for the responsibility of the ship as a whole.

Bluesman

Then you're not fit for your hypothetical command. No decent commander leads his unit into self-destruction and almost hopeless combat. You'd not be tried for EITHER failure to engage the enemy, NOR for endangering the ship and crew, because no trial would be convened for the former, and you likely wouldn't live to see the latter.

Parihaka

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In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Bluesman

Very familiar with that incident.

Long odds aren't the same as impossible odds, and Dagoes ain't Limeys.

Parihaka

zraver

Midway, Fredricksburg, Thermopylae, Salamis, Crecy, Austerlitz, Jutland not all victories but all pitted an on paper inferior force agaisnt a "supreme" enemy and the issue was very much in doubt.

dundonrl

Well.. it depends on the circumstances. Look at Taffy III and her Destroyers and Corvettes that took on Battleships, heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers and squadrons of Destroyers..

I'll post a report about the USS Johnston and her CO, CDR Ernest E. Evans.

One of the pilots flying patrol reported the approach of the Japanese Centre Force steaming straight for Taffy III. JOHNSTON's Gunnery Officer, LT Robert C. Hagen, later reported, "...we felt like little David without a slingshot." Soon after contact, JOHNSTON was zigzagging between the escort carriers and the Japanese fleet, laying a smoke screen to hide the American task unit from the enemy. For the first twenty minutes the large caliber Japanese battleship and heavy cruiser guns fired upon with Americans without fear of reprisal, the range being too great for the American 5-inch guns. "...even as we began laying smoke, the Japanese started lobbing shells at us and the JOHNSTON had to zigzag between the splashes....we were the first destroyer to make smoke, the first to start firing, the first to launch a torpedo attack...."

As the range closed, JOHNSTON opened her 5-inch battery on the nearest cruiser, scoring damaging hits. About this time an 8-inch shell landed right off her bow, its red dye splashing the face of JOHNSTON Gunnery Officer. He mopped the dye from his eyes while remarking, "Looks like somebody's mad at us!" In five furious minutes, JOHNSTON pumped 200 rounds at the enemy, then Commander Evans gave the order to fire the torpedoes. The destroyer got off a full salvo of ten fish then whipped around to retire behind a heavy smoke screen. When she came out of the smoke a minute later, Japanese cruiser KUMANO could be seen burning furiously from torpedo hits. KUMANO later sank. Shortly thereafter, JOHNSTON took three 14-inch shell hits from a battleship followed closely by three 6-inch shells from a light cruiser. "It was like a puppy being smacked by a truck. The hits resulted in the loss of all power to the steering engine, all power to the three 5-inch guns in the after part of the ship, and rendered our gyro compass useless." Through "sheer providence" a rainstorm came up; and JOHNSTON "ducked into it" for a few minutes of rapid repairs and salvage work.

At 0750, Admiral Sprague ordered the destroyers to make a torpedo attack. But JOHNSTON had already expended her full compliment of ten torpedoes. With one engine, she couldn't keep up with the others "...but that wasn't Commander Evans' way of fighting; 'we'll go in with the destroyers and provide fire support,' he boomed." JOHNSTON went in, dodging salvoes and blasting back with her 5-inch guns. As she charged out of blinding smoke, the ship was pointed straight at the bridge of the gallant task unit destroyer HEERMANN (DD 532), "All engines back full!" was ordered by Commander Evans. That meant one engine for JOHNSTON who could hardly do more than slow down. HEERMANN's two engines backed down hard and the two destroyers missed each other by less than ten feet.

There was so much smoke that Commander Evans ordered no firing unless the gunnery officer could see the enemy. "At 0820, there suddenly appeared out of the smoke a 30,000 ton KONGO Class battleship, only 7,000 yards off our port beam. I took one look at the unmistakable pagoda mast, muttered, 'I sure as hell can see that!" and opened fire. In 40 seconds we got off 30 rounds, at least 15 of which hit the pagoda superstructure....the battleship belched a few 14-inchers at us, but, thank God, registered only clean misses."

JOHNSTON soon observed GAMBIER BAY (CVE 73) under fire from a cruiser. "Commander Evans then gave the most courageous order I've ever heard, 'Commence firing on that cruiser, draw her fire on us and away from GAMBIER BAY'." JOHNSTON scored four hits in a deliberate slug match with a heavy cruiser, then broke off the futile battle as the Japanese destroyer squadron was seen closing rapidly on the American escort carriers.

JOHNSTON outfought the entire Japanese destroyer squadron, concentrating on the lead ship until the enemy quit cold, then concentrated on the second destroyer until the remaining enemy units broke off to get out of effective gun range before launching torpedoes, all of which went wild. JOHNSTON took a hit which knocked out one forward gun, damaged another, and her bridge was rendered untenable by fires and explosions resulting from a hit in her 40mm ready ammunition locker. Commander Evans shifted his command to JOHNSTON's fantail, yelling orders through an open hatch to men turning her rudder by hand. Still the destroyer battled desperately to keep the Japanese destroyers and cruisers from reaching the five surviving American carriers. "We were now in a position where all the gallantry and guts in the world couldn't save us, but we figured that help for the carriers must be on the way, and every minute's delay might count...."

"By 0930 we were going dead in the water; even the Japanese couldn't miss us. They made a sort of running semi-circle around our ship, shooting at us like a bunch of Indians attacking a prairie schooner. Our lone engine and fire room was knocked out; we lost all power, and even the indomitable skipper knew we were finished. At 0945 he gave the saddest order a captain can give: 'Abandon Ship.'..."

pdf27

There's a difference between cases like that (and for example the defence of convoy JW51B) and a Constitution-Victory fight. In the first two cases the defending force had a more-or-less fixed target of high value it had to protect. In the theoretical Constitution-Victory fight, the Constitution wouldn't have anything to protect and so isn't forced to fight - running away won't cause the US to lose something more valuable than the ship itself.

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Bluesman

Precisely. There's a difference between a man ankle-tied to a post that is being menaced by a 300-pound prize fighter trying to defend himself, and walking into a precinct house and kicking the desk sergeant in the nuts during shift change.

I'm not saying that if Constitution can't get away for some reason while Victory is bearing down on her that she must immediately strike her colors; certainly, she'd fight back until all hope was gone. But if Constitution's skipper CAN avoid the engagement, he should, and the question of being court-martialed for it is just plain silly.

Dreadnought

Dreadnought

Ah the story of "GQ Johnny". A very good story indeed.

Bluesman

By the way, my favorite story of a self-sacrificing unit is of the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg:

NOTE: this was a desperate, last-ditch, all-or-nothing case, only ordered due to the extreme peril to the entire army, maybe the outcome of the whole war. It wasn't seen as 'optional'; and neither were any of the other cases mentioned. OF COURSE mis-matches sometimes occur in war, and 'hopeless' feats-of-arms are sometimes attempted. Most of those times, though, are forced upon the underdog, and end predictably.