What Was The Largest Naval Battle Ever?
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2023
- In October 1944, the Battle of the Leyte Gulf rages. Some consider this to be the largest naval battle of all time. But was it? In this video, we look at the criteria and contenders.
Bibliography
C., Fuller J F. The Decisive Battles of the Western World and Their Influence Upon History. Stevenage, UK: Spa, 1994.
Pemsel, Helmut. A History of War at Sea: An Atlas and Chronology of Conflict at Sea from the Earliest Times to the Present. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.
Prados, John. Storm over Leyte the Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy. NY, NY: NAL Caliber, 2016.
Woodward, C. Vann, Evan Thomas, and Ian W. Toll. The Battle for Leyte Gulf: The Incredible Story of World War II’s Largest Naval Battle. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2017.
The sheer numbers in these WW2 battles in terms of personnel, munitions or ships/tanks are truly astounding
Why are modern tanks and planes have way lower numbers tHan in ww2
harder to make and much more expensive@@t.n.h.ptheneohumanpatterna8334
@@t.n.h.ptheneohumanpatterna8334 Modern tanks are much more expensive than WW2 tanks. Also, armies have less soldiers now. So couldn’t man as many tanks as in WW2
@@t.n.h.ptheneohumanpatterna8334 Modern tanks and planes are more complex, but we also aren’t at war so we aren’t prepared pushing production to the max
It's like when I read about the Ukraine invasion and news stories are wringing their hands because a few tanks got destroyed.
I'm from Leyte, and it was always taught to us that the battle was the largest naval engagement in history. A lot of us grew up questioning that with a lot pf the critieria you mentioned, but that never stopped us from commemorating it each year. I'm super glad this topic has been tackled, and now I'm pretty sure a lot of students are going to bring this video up in school. I would, and I hope you make a documentary series on it
Where in Leyte?
It was. The English still feel they have to "Rule the Waves", and somehow remain relevant in the 21st century.
@@Page5framingin Philippines
You can just search from Google bruv
@@Page5framing its an island of the Philippines
@@Aaron-ru6ld he meant which municipality or city
I think you can easily argue that Leyte Gulf took place in the home waters of the IJN at the time. What surprising about that battle is the Japanese thought they were taking on the bulk of the US Navy, not just a Task Force. They made a miscalculation of scale in poor weather and confused the Escort Carriers involved with Fleet Carriers and consequently the size of every other ship involved. Halsey had moved his Fleet Carriers and Battleships North to chase another formation. Had he turned them around this IJN force would have been annihilated. This matches Jutland were Scheer nearly sailed The German High Seas Fleet into combat with The British Grand Fleet, while pursuing the 5th Battlecruiser Squadron. Midway holds the rightful place as the key to the Pacific war as its not easy to understand how the war would have proceeded had the IJN sunk all the USN Carriers and invaded Midway instead, whereas the loss of TF3, although a tactical disaster, would not have altered the war and been dramatically avenged by the rest of the USN within days.
But can you count it as it was mainly an air to ship battle
This was nowhere near home waters for the IJN. Only a major blunder by the USN commander was even allowing for a draw off Samar. The IJN was done even before the battle, and they knew it: This was supposed to be their last stand.
A IJN victory in Midway would do nothing to prevent the deluge of Essexes from wiping them out later on. Chances are that the war wouldn't even have been longer: Tinian would have been available even if it would've taken a year longer to get there, and the Soviet offensive in Manchuria was unbothered in any case.
@@korbendallas5318 Wasn't even supposed to be a last stand.
The reason why the IJN were able to convince the IJA to allow them the critical fuel supplies to actually get to Leyte? They asked that the IJA allow them an honorable . And then Kurita... well, did what he did.
@@CommissarPancakes My source is Toll 2020, what's yours?
@@CommissarPancakes
The idea Kurita threw away an easy victory is a myth that really, really, really needs to die and is based entirely on a narrative that ignores that a) the American landings had been ongoing for days already, and b) he was facing FAR more enemy opposition at Samar than often assumed.
TF38/58 (Third Fleet) WASN’T the only powerful American fleet at Leyte Gulf; Seventh Fleet (which Taffy 3 was a small part of) was also there, and they hadn’t been lured away like Halsey’s forces. In fact they actually would have intercepted Kurita if he hadn’t turned around and fled, as the main body of Seventh Fleet (as in, the American force at Surigao Strait) was moving north towards the final stages of Samar.
And even Taffy 3 itself was significantly more formidable than often assumed: the usual narrative of the battle misconstrues it as being won almost entirely by the tin cans, ignoring that it was actually the air attacks from the CVEs that caused far more damage overall (including all the cruiser losses), that Taffy 3 was backed up by Taffy 1 and 2, or that the CVEs were not in fact completely lacking anti-ship weapons; the tin cans ended up getting far too much glory because of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors playing them up (and making up White Plains’s gun kill, which Chokai’s wreck proved never happened) and massively downplaying the role of the CVEs (mostly due to ignoring primary records from the CVEs).
I’m here early, I’m quite happy about that cause I’m usually Leyte
I know you probably had that up your sleeve for some time, but don't worry, there's no 'arm in it
This narrator is a treasure! He presents the facts in an outwardly neutral manner but he does the subtle things like an occasional raised voice to peak interest and instil feelings in the events he’s describing.
Battle Of Cape Ecnomus in the 1st Punic war
Given how the airplane changed naval warfare, Leyte Gulf certainly stands out given the numbers involved.
My grandfather, Charles A Orr, who was a Master Sargent at wars end, 3rd Marine, 'Para Marine" trained and helped develop equipment and tactics for airborne operations, before the war. When the Marines disbanded the Paramarines, became the chief parachute rigger, as his duty station, for the Carrier "Marcus Island".
As part of Task Force Taffy 2, He was wounded on the Marcus Island in a double Kamikaze attack on the ship.
When the first of them came in, they shot it down, but parts hit the ship, decapitating the man next to my grandfather, my grandfather took metal into his thigh. This was when he was at his battle station, above deck, as an observer, spotting aircraft and torpedo's etc during battle . As the other plane attacked, it too was shot down, but skipped bombs into the side of the ship killing another 19 men. Some time around Xmas.
He convalesced in Guadalcanal's hospital and reppledeppled back into the 3rd Marine in mid February, landed on Iwo Jima in late February and left in early April, unscathed.
Then he went to Korea a couple years later, but thats a different war....
I think your presentation of the criteria and how one needs to look at the question in order to arrive at a conclusion is both excellent, articulate and concise. A brilliant video.
Nicely done...
The Battle of Lepanto might be on the list as well. Things would have been radically different had the outcome been different...
It belongs in the list by sheer numbers. The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 saw 490 ships and 132,000 personnel actively engaged, and those numbers are fairly reliable.
I love your content. My vote goes to Rome v. Carthage in the third Punic War. I do not even understand how this was not a contender. Rome went all in with everyone. As did Carthage. RIP Carthage. I always root for you.
IIRC the Third Punic War was a pretty one-sided affair. Must have been one of the other two.
It was the first war over Sicily, The second was Hannibals invasion and the third, Carthago delenta est.
Me too!
@@RedmondBarryII actually the Greeks and Carthaginians fought over Sicily centuries before
Fuuck Carthage. Evil rats.
From a strategic perspective, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was almost completely anticlimactic because the Japanese Navy had already been defeated so badly that the most it could hope to accomplish was to sacrifice its remaining strength in a delaying action. Japan came close to achieving its goal of battleships being able to pound America's beachhead for however long the battleships could have stayed around before the main U.S. carrier force either sunk them or forced them to withdraw (quite possibly sinking them while they were withdrawing). But at most, that would have set the U.S. back a few weeks replacing losses. Because the battle was a sacrifice maneuver to make the war more expensive for the U.S., not an attempt at real naval victory, it cannot rank high on the list of naval battles that caused a major difference to the wars they were part of.
Yes, as it was almost insignificant compared to others. Therefore I don´t really understand the points given to the battles in this point system, as all other mentioned battles significantly changed the outcome of major wars.
@@chrissim4386 Not only other wars, but the trajectory of history itself.
Jutland . Thanks for coming to my Ted talk . This is also born out by the fictional commander of the American carrier group in ' The hunt for red october ' saying " Somebody messes up, we'll be in the biggest naval battle since Jutland." Incontrovertible proof , I think you'll agree . :)
I REALLY hope this means will be seeing a "Battle of Leyte Gulf" popping up soon on the operations room. would really like to see a 4 part (1 for each battle) on the main channel.
My late father was there. He was an Army Air Corps engineer. He operated a bulldozer working on airfields.
The war never could have been won without men like him!
Enjoyed the video. A bar graph that doesn't start at zero is less useful for comparing the total amounts of things than just writing the numbers.
Informative AND entertaining documentary as always. Thank you!
It occurs to me that the Battle of the Atlantic qualifies as "battle" in the same sense that the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain does. Or even the Battle of the Bulge, the shortest of the four. Multiple different actions spread out over one or more months but in a more or less cohesive area. Britain and France have the further unifying factor that within each battle there was no real change in tech within each one (Britain added radar to the mix between the battles, but the Spit and the Hurri and the 109, 110, and the Heinkels and Dorniers remained largely the same from 10 July through the end of October). The Battle of the Bulge didn't have a change in tech so much as a change in the _weather_; the battle was largely a stalemate as long as the clouds prevented American air superiority. Once that was able to return, GI Joe got fresh supplies and close air support, and Fritz had a very hard time indeed.
The Battle of the Atlantic lasted long enough that it was improvements in both escort availability and tactics and technology - both British and American - that finally tipped the scales. In that sense it is unique among "Battles"... even the protracted Guadalcanal campaign didn't see any tech improvements; the Corsair and Hellcat and new/refitted American carriers didn't show up until 1943, after the Japanese had extracted their people and left the island to the Yanks.
The thing of it is, though, the Allies lost France, and it just made the war longer. If the Allies had lost Britain, things would've gotten *really interesting* (though I have doubt in the ability of the Wermacht to make it north of Hadrian's Wall). If the Allies lost the Bulge or the Canal, they still would've won the war, though it would've taken a lot longer.
If they'd lost the Battle of the Atlantic?
Ich würde diese Bemerkung auf Deutsch machen.
But the Japanese saw fit to get all rowdy, which meant the Brits got their Liberators and everybody got jeep carriers and Herr Dönitz started having a Really Bad Time... and as we speak it's the Germans who are fighting Nazis, and appear to be winning.
Yeah those examples are "battles" in a more abstract sense, a head to head contest, but were definitely not battles in the sense that "Battle of X" is almost always used. Like, they're only not "wars" simply because they were a categorical subset of a broader definitive war. I feel like this also applies to events like "the Battle of Verdun" which was actually just an operation of WWI that lasted nearly an entire year. There are "battles" in the sense of a particular temporally and geographically localized (in a sense) engagements with a short operative arc, and then there are "battles" in the sense of "an armed conflict for a particular objective".
The tricky part is trying to strictly define the distinction (especially in cases like Verdun where there is continuous moment to moment violence basically every day) which raises an observation interesting to me that this sort of situation is a semantic ambiguity that (afaik) exclusively exists in the 20th century onwards. Pre-industrial (and even pre-modern) militaries and societies simply couldn't sustain that sort of activity.
I think the Wehrmacht could've blitzed across Britain if they ever managed a successful amphibious landing. The BEF was in tatters, most of the tanks and artillery were left in Normandy, the home guard was very under equipped at that time and Britain had no remaining european allies. That being said I really doubt Germany could've pulled off operation sea lion. The D-day landings took years to plan, even after years of naval superiority, the US joining the war, the RAF winning air superiority over Normandy and Germany was losing the Easter front.
@@RealUlrichLeland I don't think they could. Germany planned to have converted river and harbour barges go across the English Channel (good luck with that, with British weather) and the Germans conveniently just hoped for the best when it came to the fact that the RN was still the largest in the world in 1940. Britain had *8 times more destroyers* patrolling the span of the Thames Estuary, than Germany had any Destroyers.
Sandhurst actually ran a Operation Sea Lion war game to see how the German invasion would have panned out.
Both the Germans and British were unanimous that it would have been a bloodbath.
*"Of the 90,000 German troops who landed, only 15,400 returned to France. 33,000 were taken prisoner, 26,000 were killed in the fighting and 15,000 drowned in the English Channel."*
I understand the German high command were incredibly relieved when Sea Lion was cancelled.
These are campaigns. Much like 'Battle of Britain, or Battle of France or even something like 'Battle of Stalingrad' it would be more accurate to call these engagements campaigns because of their sheer scale, area of operations, and duration.
Ultimately this starts getting into the debate over what can be considered a 'battle' and what is a campaign which is why there always so much contention in deciding any one largest or deadliest Battle because it's hard to define what a 'Battle' even is.
@@livethefuture2492 A "battle" in the classic sense, would be something like Salamis or Trafalgar.
The ships at Leyte Gulf were much larger than the ships in ancient and medieval sea battles. So the total tonnage at Leyte Gulf should have been the greatest ever in any naval battle.
But the total number of ships and/or men might possibly have been larger in one or more ancient or medieval sea battles. For ancient sea battles, the battles in the First Punic War might have been the largest.
During the rebellion that overthrew the Yuan dynasty of China, two rival factions of the Red Turban rebels fought each other in the Battle of Lake Poyang 30 August to 4 October 1363. Zhu Yuanzhang with allegedly 200,000 men defeated Chen Youliang who allegedly had over 100 vessels and 650,000 men.
Battle of Salamis was pretty big too.
Edit: commented before watching the video, Battle of Salamis is three minutes in. 😀
@@jtjames79 True.
What was the logic of making such huge fleets in a lake?
@rosameltrozo5889 it's a very big lake. I know that sounds simple but it is the answer.
Quinqueremes (what the Romans would have been using) only displace about 100 tons. For context, an Iowa class battleship displaces somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 tons. That means that the Battle of Cape Ecnomus was just a few thousand tons larger than a single battleship. The scale of WWII ships compared to ancient ships is almost mind boggling.
If this means a Leyte Gulf Operations Room series I'm so hyped. I've not been able to find a good video on it yet.
Probably because it's two parts boring, one part utterly confused.
They probably do want to do one at some point and it's simply the scale of the battles that makes it difficult and time consuming to research and produce since as they point out it's technically 4 battles involving a huge number of ships and planes.
Terrific presentation. Thanks!
Personally I would divide "largest" and "most significant" into two different categories.
For "largest", I like the idea of measuring using displacement, since that favours high-quality and technologically advanced vessels over tiny wooden boats. However, I would also only count vessels intended for combat that are in an area that is of significance to the battle. This means that transports are not counted, but escort ships and vessels that don't actually engage but do manoeuvre to threaten the enemy can be counted. Sadly I do not have enough detailed information about Leyte Gulf to calculate if it is larger than Jutland with these criteria.
For "most significant" I would use something in the same style as the Helmut Pemsel scoring system, but I would completely disregard the "numbers involved" score and only go for strategic and political significance. I am uncertain what the "Tactical execution" score is used for, so I can't tell if I would include it or not. Leyte Gulf is definitely NOT the most significant battle in history as per the points that are pointed out in this video. Salamis or The Spanish Armada are more fitting candidates, but there will probably be a lot of contenders for first place.
I like the thinking here. As far as impact of naval engagements, how about a consideration of the battle between French and British warships at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay just outside of Yorktown, VA during the American Revolutionary War? The political implications of that battle, I would think, have to be profound.
I wonder about using a standard that's proportional to the ship sizes of the time. A ton of displacement in 300CE vs 1700CE vs 1940 CE is worth a shrinking amount in comparative capability to other ships in the battle after all.
The reason I would not rate Leyte gulf 8 is that Japanese carrier power had already been defeated, hence they were on the back foot. Even at Philippine sea, the Japanese had aircraft, but not many skilled aviators. Most of the Japanese experienced aviators were lost in the Solomons campaign
@@Stlaind a relative "adjust for inflation" aspect, so to speak, would make sense.
Another factor with the ancient battles is the relative size to the population of mankind. A staggering proportion of soldiers to civilians would be engaged, whereas the more modern ones its only a tiny percentage.
That's not universal today (Ukraine is one example), but otherwise, yes, more or less.
@@Cailus3542 Even in Ukraine the portion of actively engaged personnel is not that large, on both sides.
This was a lot more informative than I expected, especially the consideration of criteria for 'the largest'.
Well done. You treated that thorny topic very fairly and I believe came to the correct conclusion, i.e. that it really depends on how each of us ranks the various criteria in importance.
A thoughtful analysis. Thank you.
I think you should calculate the joules of energy expended during the battle to determine the “largest.” That would incorporate the energy expended by an average galley slave to the propulsion and detonation of 18 inch naval guns.
It wold be cool but actually impossible to calculate due to to much missing data. Also dose the wind catch bu sail count? So those the wind catch by super structure of a ship moving in the same direction as the wind could? So impossible to calculate, but still a cool idea!
LOL
That would create a huge bias in favour of gunpowder battles, specially in favour of WWI and WWII battles, which used massive amounts of modern, high power explosives.
For me, in terms of modern naval battles (ie Age of Steam & Steel) it is either Jutland or Midway, Jutland for sheer numbers and Midway for sheer scale of distance.
And significance also is a major factor for me; Jutland because the entire war could have changed in that day, and Jellico is famously remembered as the only man who could lose WWI in a day. Equally had the German fleet been destroyed, Germany would have been exceptionally vulnerable so not only is at a huge battle, but also incredibly important.
Equally Midway was a major turning point in the Pacific War, and while neither side could lose the Pacific War on the day, the battle essentially shaped the rest of the entire war, or at least the duration.
As I’m not too knowledgeable on battles of antiquity, I tend to stick to talking largest battles in more modern context, Napoleonic and onwards.
Another great video👍🏻👍🏻
I've been waiting with bated breath for the next video. Yay!
I have to think that Lepanto belongs in the discussion of "most significant" naval battles.
In modern sports statisticians have developed a measure of win probability, which tracks in real time during the game. In principle, this allows us to look back for individual plays that caused the biggest changes in win probability. This is harder to do with wars for many reasons (not least of which is the lack of a fixed definition of "winning"), but maybe there is some room to develop there.
But Lepanto had no long-term significance whatsoever. The Turks just rebuilt their navy and continued dominating the eastern Mediterranean, and also seized control of Cyprus which was their real prize at the time.
@@YourMommaGreen It was arguably the turning point for Ottoman expansion westward, it remains the largest naval battle (by number of vessels) since antiquity, and it ended the age of the galley. It's true that the Holy League squandered the strategic opportunity to take immediate victory, but there were still long-term consequences.
@@YourMommaGreen If Lepanto had gone the other way, the West would have been defenceless and Ottoman expansion into Europe and Africa would have gone on.
The fact that the Ottomans had decades to rebuild their fleet allowed for important engagements on land that stabilized and then reversed the Ottoman conquests in the century.
@@carloscampo9119 Ever since Suleiman the Magnificent's siege of Vienna the Turkish threat to Europe was on land, not on sea. It is inconceivable that, even if they had won Lepanto, the Turks could have dominated the western Mediterranean and destroyed the maritime states there. There were other western European states like Portugal, England and France that would have come to oppose that even if Lepanto had been lost. But on land the Turks continued their threat to Austria and Venice (even after losing Lepanto) until they were stopped at the great battle of Vienna.
I agree with @jdotoz that Lepanto has its significance in terms of the number and type of vessels that fought, and the symbolism. But the strategic significance of that battle in checking the advance of the Turks is perhaps overstated.
@@YourMommaGreenBut that's where the line of a symbolic win and a strategic one becomes blurry, every single resistance movement against the ottoman empire cited Lepanto as an inspiration of their fight against their oppressors, from the Greeks to the Romanian, from the Serbs to the Hungarian, the ottoman were beaten before and after, but Lepanto still stands as the most, or sometimes second most, remembered on the matter. If you will, take it as bias from the general public that naval battles are more romanticised than ground ones (see for example how Mukden was the largest battle of it's time, and probably ever up to that point, but more people remember admiral Togo at Tsushima).
Ive always favoured Jutland here. At no other time did you see a pure massive naval battle like that, only being ship v ship, with massive modern dreadnoughts duling it out. its scale is often overlooked in favour of Leyte, which I think is unjust.
British aren't you?
A reason why Jutland is often overlooked is because it was neither strategically nor tactically significant, yes a very large number of ships with a large tonnage took part, but the situation of both navies involved remained unchanged, the Royal Navy lost more ships and more sailors but they also had more to begin with. Leyte Gulf and other Pacific Theater battles resulted in the decisive crippling of the Japanese Navy and their inability to not only go on the offensive but to even protect Japan itself.
@@williammerkel1410In my opinion, Jutland may be justified. As the video stated above, Jutland, while a tactical stalemate, was a major strategic victory in the long term for the British, as it meant their blockade of supplies to Germany was not (significantly) challenged again. Considering Germany's surrender in 1918 was primarily due to lack of food and money to keep the war going, (of which both were incredibly dependent access to the sea for trading) not a lack of manpower relative to the other belligerents, does show Jutland to be a decisive moment.
Leyte was huge, however, it could be seen as a series of battles, and was the fate of Japan not already decided? Personally I'd argue Midway as a contender to Leyte here, perhaps because imo i think it was a strategic turning point in the war in the Pacific, or even the Battle of the Philippine Sea(if that counts as it was basically just aircraft carrier battle) as larger blows to the IJN.
Edit: another point, your yourself say 'Leyte Gulf and Other Pacific Theatre Battles' which I think does highlight the spread of significance over many battles in the Pacific, not just one or two incredibly large battles. If the question was, 'What was the largest Naval Theatre / series of Naval battles?' Then I'd say Pacific Theatre WW2, but for individual battle I really do think Jutland.
@@sharpshotm16It helps to divide them up. Leyte Gulf mostly involved carrier attacks, with the vast majority of Allied ships in the battle never seeing an enemy ship or firing a weapon in anger.
Jutland was exclusively a surface action, the last of its kind to involve huge armadas on both sides, with pretty much every ship fighting in some capacity.
@@Cailus3542 I agree, on your points, it is incredibly hard to define 'largest' and determine the gap between engagements for it to constitute as multiple battles, and are ships counted as participants if, as you say, they never fired a single round. I feel like the only way is in very narrow categories, but even then, political significance and strategic significance are pretty broad terms. It is a good question though.
Fantastic video as always, really well done. One minor critique: for future videos with graphs can you please make the x-axis start at zero?
This was very well done. It covered the associated issues and didn't make the mistake of actually trying to pick one.
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I believe that is was the battle of cape ecnomus but I may be wrong
No you’re right
Fantastic episode.
🇨🇦 Army Veteran
Well done & balanced. Thanks.
Excellent analysis!
Doing data science study here, your vids really are an example with how to do a great, unbiased presentation. Gg
Excellent history lesson. Thank you. I always wondered of the transition from the Roman republic to the Roman empire.
Haven't watched yet, but if we're talking about ships and men then it's probably a one of the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome. Though a lot of the historians in that period exaggerated the hell out of their battle sizes it's pretty obvious from findings and what we do know that the naval battles in those two wars were extremely large.
I submit that the Battle of Okinawa should be considered for the title. The allies had over 700 vessels (including 44 carriers and 20 battleships) while the Japanese had 10 surface combatants (including notably Yamato) and over 200 kamikaze boats, plus submarines on both sides.
The battle of Okinawa wasn't really a naval battle, all those ships were supporting the invasion
I'd still say Jutland, if one counts capital ships in action. Leyte was a whole series of battles.
But Leyte was part of one simultaneous series of operations, where the Japanese drew off American carriers from Centerforce to the northern force. The various units in different areas, did maneuver in response to each other, even where they didn’t actually shoot. Keep in mind US Navy forces, including amphibious forces were also fighting against land-based Japanese air craft. And conducting an amphibious operation at the same time time. Leyte had a lot of moving parts, but it was all part of one objective for the Americans, to take Leyte, and one objective for Japan, to destroy the American invasion ships.
@@treyhelms5282 So let's call the entire war "Battle of Berlin"!
@@korbendallas5318 LOL, and the entire eastern front "Battle of Russia"!
A naval engagement that includes the Battle Off Samar has to be epic.
Fun video. Provides a lot of food for thought.
The battle of lepanto involved more than 500 ships. It should have been mentioned
I would argue Jutland, because Leyte Gulf was more consecutive battles imo. Jutland and it's consequences of blockade against Germany probably shortened the war by many years, considering the main reasons for German surrender in 1918 were lack of money and food, not territorial defeat.
I disagree with the idea Jutland isn’t the biggest. But to a minor point, I thought Germany wasn’t going to get any commerce for regardless of what happened at Jutland. But Jutland guaranteed the German Navy couldn’t stop British commerce.
@@treyhelms5282 In the unlikely event that the RN suffered huge losses, and the High Seas Fleet didn't, then the High Seas Fleet might well have broken the blockade. The Northern Patrol consisted mainly of AMCs and armed trawlers, with few regular warships.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 The British could have lost the war in May 1916 if their fleet got destroyed
Omg please do the battles of ancient naval battles on the operations room
My instincts said Jutland....but good analysis..interesting.
There is a difference between most important/significant battle and largest battle. When talking about largest I think most people just wanna know size of fleet or tonnage. I also think ships not involved in the actual fight and are just in the general region should not be counted.
But the whole point of the Japanese attack plan was to get those transports. And keep in mind during the same time They were being attacked by Japanese army aircraft and taking part in an amphibious assault. They absolutely should be counted as part of the battle of Leyte Gulf.
@@treyhelms5282 so idk much about that battle it's self and was saying that in general. Like if there's a ship 40 miles away from the battle that's not participating at all it shouldn't be counted just cause it's close by. From how it was described it was more of several individual battles taking place all at once close enough to each other that it all got counted as one but seems like it's a point of debate and again I don't know much about that battle
The biggest battle is more a relic of the single knockout blow thinking. Maybe a comparison of the most Important naval/land/air campaign in history can be interesting using some of these factors along with a few more.
Great work by the way
Part of the issue with ancient battles is a large number of the ships are invasion/ transport craft that are mainly just to move the men around. If you include criteria like this Normandy has almost 200,000 naval personal and something like 5,000 ships.
One factor not discussed is the extreme differences in technologies between the ancient sea battles and the modern/recent engagements along with the effectiveness those societies to build ships.
Tbh, Leyte Gulf wasn't such a decisive battle. Even if the Americans had completely screwed up, they still would've likely won the war. The Japanese carrier force was already in tatters before Leyte Gulf. As far as historical significance is concerned, battles like Salamis or Trafalgar are surely more important.
If the Royal Navy lost the Battle of Jutland then it would be game over for the British Empire and the First World War. The stakes in that battle were sky high.
The Battle of the Atlantic which went on continuously from 1939 to 1945 and involved thousands of ships,submarines and aircraft and millions of men was undoubtedly the largest naval engagement in history
It also stretches the word "battle" considerably, but then again, so does Leyte Gulf.
@@Cailus3542 Leyte was more modern warfare. Northern force drew US carriers away from Center force. US battleline could have helped if Kurita continued to invasion force. Center and Southern force and land-based air were trying to get to same invasion force. All on same day same admittedly large area. It was one operation for Japan also. Add that up, it really was one battle with a few parts, like Jutland was at least two, the battlecruisers battle and man battle.
I really dont think the Battle of the Atlantic can be considered a 'Battle' in any sense of the word. It's more of a campaign or theatre of operations in much the same way the 'Battle of France' or 'Battle of Britain' is used to describe a certain campaign or phase of the war.
Yeah the scale of the battle is now streching so far that time and space has to stretch aswell to involve all the components of the battle.
Id say if we're going for 'largest', displacement or tonnage of ships involved seems to be the most appropriate metric.
We often describe quantity of shipping in terms of tonnage as well, so it makes sense to compare the size of naval engagements in the same way.
How can one measure displacement or tonnage for the largest battles of Antiquity or Lepanto?
I was a little surprised to no hear a mention of the battle of lepanto (1571) -- while fully falling under you description of renaissance battles, it could have been mentioned under strategic importance, as it halted the ottoman advance in the mediterranean -- though I don't think it would have changed your conclusions
To add an extra sheen to your videos, I recommend checking your scripts and readings again. Especially the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'. Or if there is a background noise.
referred and received, thanks. i now kinda truly understand “…one of…”, the more you know
Outstanding videos. I love these!
Very informative video.
I found it interesting and made me think, Jutland was surface ingagement the was some aircraft for scouting and U boats but all sea battle .
So thats something to think about.
Leyte was land, sea and air.
Hummm?
Surprised The glorious 4th of June didn’t make the cut
Hope to see age of sail actions on this Channel someday, however
Okay so I seldom have substantial complaints about your videos, but come on, if your graph has to not start at origin, put axis-broken symbols on it to make clear the bars cannot be linearly read.
Otherwise great video, keep up the good work 👍🏻
Will you do the Letey Gulf battle series???
Lepanto doesn't even get a mention?
With around 278 ships and 94,000 men it is indeed a surprise to not see it here.
Battle of leyte gulf was the largest naval battle in WW2.
However, the Roman-Punic war saw an even larger battle, where 1280 ships fought each other.
By tonnage, Leyte gulf is the largest.
By ships, that one is, i can't remember the name though
The battle of Lepanto should've been in the list due to the significance and importance of it, it stopped Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean
One of the largest and bloodiest naval battles was the battle of Actium 2 September 31 BC. Here Octavian (Emperor Augustus) defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra.
A good question also, would it be ok to consider ALL naval battles throughout history (think hundreds/thousand+ years ago) as well? Or just the modern age ones.
The importance of a battle is probably more interesting than the amount of means and men, but it's also harder to establish.
Would be cool to see you guys do the battle of jutland. Dont think the O.R. have covered any WW1 battles yet
What an interistring debate.
The sizes of those bars in the bar graphs bug me to no end. They aren't proportionally sized
Ships sunk and tonnage sunk would be interesting to look at. If few ships are sunk, it's hard to say it was a large battle; it's more of a meeting of ships.
Nah, could be misleading. I understand that many ships in the age of sails were not sunk, just destroyed down to the waterline.
Thanks for drawing the right conclusion: given the wide range of differences between battles, that there can't be a single biggest battle of all time. Also, the word "battle" has been stretched so much over the years that it is nowadays largely meaningless.
That said, I think Jutland is really too small, because it was more of a skirmish. They didn't start until late afternoon, and they barely got to fight. If the battle had started at 9:00 am, and continued all day, it would be a real battle. The carnage would have been astounding.
In retrospect, we should be grateful that Jutland didn't become a battle of annihilation. The slaughter would've been horrific given the size of the respective fleets. It remains, I think, the only time in history that two such enormous armadas have fought with such firepower.
It's odd that the Battle of Lepanto got left out considering that it forces consisted of around 490 ships and around 130 000 men on both sides which all were active combatants in the battle. In addition, being fought in 1571 there are multiple written sources both from historical accounts, eye-witness accounts, letters and even muster lists, so it is considerable better documented and with more reliable sources then the naval battles of the Punic wars for example. I'm not saying, it was bigger than Leyte Gulf but it should at least make the list as a contender.
I agree, except classical sources are kinda dodgy. And gotta wonder how did they feed everyone there, back then? edit: I agree Lepanto should have been included.
No doubt. Lepanto was both massive and maybe as significant in preventing major historical shifts as the most important battles in the list.
During the First Punic 0:21 War, (260-246 BCE) there was the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, fought off southern Sicily. The Roman Fleet met the Carthaginian &Allied fleet. Over 2000 ships and 80,000 men fought for quite,a while and over 35000 dead (Galleys - Triremes and Quinquiremes) carried between 60 and 120 slaves for rowing power, a crew of up to 40, and a variable number of infantry Soldiery, so usually had over 150 men aboard. On the Cartaginian side there were also a large number of troop transports, not warships.
Carthage was the Naval Superpower at the time, but it was the numerically inferior Romans who prevailed.
In terms of numbers of men and ships involved, it DWARFS every Naval 0:21 Battle since.
One factor not mentioned here is home support. Ships and weapons need to be built by large numbers of non-combatants, and their quality has its own impact on the battle.
One could express the size of the battle in terms of its costs, either absolutely, or as a fraction of the economies involved. The latter would allow for a more even comparison of battles in different time periods.
Coming from an american, i have 2 favorite battles of ww2. One is midway, the other stalingrad. Not like I'm stepping out going with those two but they were just effing epic, and i can't help myself.
The nature of naval battles change with technology so largest battles are impossible to determine. Decisiveness is the best measure and that is only per period and we determine that, your eye of the beholder is the best answer.
I still never can understand why it's call the "Battle of the Atlantic" outside of it's initial term or why it's still called that.
It was a moderately homogenous campaign in a fixed geographical area. I wouldn't call it "battle" in the sense discussed here, but I understand why it's named that way.
OTOH, one could call the entirety of the Western Front in WWI "Battle of Flanders" or somesuch. No major changes for years.
The Intel Report hinting a video about to released by the Operations Room, the Battle for Leyte Gulf is sure subtle
I would say Midway was larger in overall impact. 200 ships from the Japanese against only about 50 from the US, even though the only Japanese ships that fired a weapon were the carriers and their screening vessels, the Aleutian fleet, and maybe the invasion fleet under Admiral Kondo. As the video mentions, without Midway, Leyte Gulf likely wouldn't have seen those engagements.
It seems like Leyete Gulf was most certainly the most "diverse" with all sorts of craft playing quite significant parts within it.
0:35 I heard your phone buzz haha
In terms of battle vs campaign, the Falklads War has an element to this - I wish that Pemcel did his analysis a decade later to account for it.
Personally, I think the overall Royal Navy contribution counts as a campaign like the WW2 Battle of the Atlantic. However, HMS Conqueror sinking the ARA Belgrano could be considered a massive battle as it convinced the Argentine Navy to return to port, including it's aircraft carrier.
Given how precarious the British victory was, that carrier could have made a big mess of the RN Task Force and potentially swung the war in Argentina's favour.
i would love a special episode on admiral yi sun sin's last stand
This was an interesting discussion. I've always been team Leyte, but I've come around to the idea of Jutland being the biggest "pure" naval battle. By the same criteria that would dislodge Leyte, you could also dislodge every pre-Renaissance battle, since those were more like infantry battles fought on ships.
What about including the length of the battle as a criterium? For example the Four Days Battle between the English and the Dutch in 1666?
In my humble opinion to find the largest naval battle one must consider the number of ships involve, whether its transport, a small row boat, or the massive warships, the bottom line should be a ship is a ship. Those ships are part of the area of operation, part of the fleet, part of the campaign, and regardless of if they are mere transport of whatever... they are still a part of it.
It'll be like debating the Guinness Book of "World Records".
Quite surprised that the Battle of Lepanto was not included
RIP Cmdr. Ernest E. Evans, the lost of the USS Johnston and the rest of Taffy 3.
It was and is the Battle at Cap Ecnomus Rom v Carthago in first Punic War. There were never again as much Ships and Men involved in single location at same time as here. around 700 Ships and 300000 man, all on few km2. Leyte spans over multiple days and locations so no single Battle.
I don't think strategic or political significance is normally a part of what we mean when we ask how big a battle was. If we want to know how significant a battle was, we can always just ask "how significant" it was, without having to roll significance into a discussion of size. While we generally expect significance to correlate with size, significance and size are not the same thing.
I just personally think the Roman victory solidified them as an empire and thus holds the importance of the Roman empire making it the greatest because of how Rome would shape the West and how the West would shape the world.
That sould make the battle of salamis more important still. Roman culture is pretty much a copy of Greek culture and greek would have been a persian colony without that victory. No greek democracy and ideals in europe today without the battle of salamis. Many historians call it the most important battle for European culture in history.
not the greatest, largest or biggest but with the largest consequences for todays europe.
Did you factor in the weight of taffy 3’s bullocks for the tonnage?
How about the metric of the total amount of ordnance that the two sides threw at each other? To be clear, I don’t know those numbers for any of these battles, I’m just curious and would like to see how they stack up then.
I am quite sure that if you considered the Battle of the Atlantic one battle I’m sure that’d be enormous, but I agree with you that that is really a campaign and not one single battle.
Although ancient naval battles would be "zero."
I would like to argue that there is another criterion that could be considered: the total potential destructive power of the elements involved. It would be a measure of shear destructive power of the ships and planes involved.
Well the problem there is that any small skirmish involving any modest naval task force of today (2023) would immediately become the largest naval battle ever. Naval power today is 1000x what it was in 1944.
One of today's 2000 ton submarine could wipe out the entire US Fleet at Leyte Gulf.
if that were the case, then the "largest fleet" would be that one ICBM sub under the polar ice caps, capable of ending humanity using the weapons within its hold
Battle of Leyte Gulf main channel video incoming ??